The Olympians of UNO: a look back at the stories from some of our local sporting heroes
Sarah Hirini (neé Goss)
Sarah Hirini (Goss) carried the flag for New Zealand in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics opening ceremony and is playing in our women’s sevens rugby team but back in 2017 she was on the cover of UNO Magazine.
“It meant I was able to play whatever sport I wanted without my parents having to drive me around everywhere. It was all just there”. Gymnastics and netball transitioned into competitive hockey, and ultimately rugby in her final year at school. At the time, Sarah’s coach had recommended taking up rugby to help improve her fitness for hockey but she soon found the full contact and competitiveness of 15-aside rugby much more stimulating than hockey and as a result, traded her hockey stick for a pair of rugby boots. However, it was not a completely smooth transition into her newfound passion.
“I hid it from my parents for about three months, thinking they were going to tell me off for playing rugby. I felt like back then, there wasn’t much support for women’s rugby despite my family being massive rugby supporters.” But once Sarah decided to tell her parents of her new secret love, they were only disappointed they had missed watching her games and according to Sarah, “they’ve watched me ever since. I remember telling my parents back in the seventh form when they asked what I was going to do the following year and I remember saying I’m going to become a professional rugby player and back then they kind of laughed, but I am someone who will just go after it and I will do everything I can to prove people wrong. I’m stubborn, and it ended up happening.”
Read the full story on Sarah’s rise within rugby.
Peter Burling
Peter Burling has reached incredible heights since his cover story in UNO in spring 2017 and is currently sailing in Tokyo.
“At the Olympic level,” he says, “a lot of it is just a seat-of-your-pants kind of thing, because today you have a single platform that you can’t really change or improve.”
This is, after all, essentially a one-design race and everyone uses virtually identical equipment, so – as Burling says – “It’s a question of how you set it up and how well you can sail it!” But in something like the America’s Cup it’s different; the variables are almost infinite and change – literally – by the hour. And in that fast moving, high-tech environment, knowledge is power.
“I’ve always really liked the engineering side of sailing,” he says, “ever since I was a little kid and making things and trying things on the boats. I’ve always been quite pedantic on having a really clean and well-thought- out boat, not having anything on there that doesn’t need to be there, and having it all neat and tidy.”
Matt Scorringe
The New Zealand Olympic surfing team’s head coach graced the cover of UNO back in summer 2020.
One of the drivers of that change has been the acceptance of surfing as an Olympic sport. “Surfing,” says Matt, “particularly in New Zealand, is still seen differently to other major sports – and the Olympics will change that. It will mean we start to take things seriously and start working towards finding the best path for our athletes at Olympic level. I’ve talked with friends in snowboarding and other sports that have recently been made Olympic sports and they all say it takes time. It’s like the chicken and the egg – you need funding to get results, you need results to get funding – but it’s great to see that we’re off to a really good start with two athletes going to Tokyo.”
Matt’s role in preparing those Olympic contenders has been as head coach of the development pathways programme he helped put together to get our surfers up to Olympic qualifying level, and he’s more than happy with the results. “We’ve now got two athletes qualified for the 2020 Olympics – Billy Simon from Raglan and Ella Williams from Whangamata – who both came through that programme. Now we just need to get some more structures and mechanisms in place to support them and the sport. At that level, you don’t spend a lot of time at home; you’re travelling all the time, so you need coaches, nutritionists and all the support required on different continents. Part of what I’m doing is not just bringing my knowledge but the connections and contacts to make it easier.”
Sarah Cowley Ross
Our most recent cover star, Olympic and Commonwealth Games heptathlete Sarah Cowley Ross is currently a huge presence in media coverage of the Games.
Sarah says her ultimate high was when she qualified for the Olympics in Götzis, Austria. “I knew I was in good shape, but a really significant moment was in the high jump when I jumped 191; at the time my best had been 184. I was really free. For a long time, I’d put a handbrake on my life, and for the five years previous I hadn’t improved in the way I wanted to.
A year before, I probably wanted to quit, but I managed to turn it around, and in that high jump I finally unleashed what I was physically capable of. It was one of the purest moments of my life.”