Kiwi alphine skier Piera Hudson has lashed out at Snow Sports NZ, after being omitted from the Winter Olympics team for a second time in her career.
New Zealand will be represented at next month's Beijing Games by Alice Robinson, a legitmate medal contender, based on World Cup performances in recent years. She was ranked fifth in 2020 and eighth in 2021 for giant slalom, with three World Cup victories to her name.
But for much of the past decade, before Robinson's emergence, Hudson, 25, was the nation's best international skiier, attending world championships and Youth Olympics, while dominating national championships.
In November 2018, she became the first Kiwi to score World Cup points since three-time Olympian Claudia Riegler 15 years earlier.
But despite her pedigree, Hudson was overlooked for the Pyeongchang Games four years ago and that omission cuts even deeper, now she has also missing out on Beijing.
"I am absolutely heartbroken to be saying that I will not be representing New Zealand at the Beijing Olympics," Hudson has posted on Instagram.
"After qualifying in 2018 and not being selected then, I went on to become the first Kiwi in 15 years to score World Cup points. I truly believed I would receive some sort of help or support from my federation or my country over the next four years, but that was not the case.
"Fast forward to now, despite having a less than ideal qualification period with multiple injuries, and COVID interruptions preventing me from training and travelling for key races, I still managed to partially make the criteria, and was getting faster and building momentum for Beijing. Unfortunately, this was not enough in SSNZ’s eyes and they once again did not nominate me to the NZOC."
New Zealand has qualified three women's spots in alpine skiing, but only Robinson will attend the Olympics.
"It is devastating to be told no, and ignored over and over again by a federation who does nothing to support me in any way, but still has the power to control my outcomes and opportunities in a sport that I have dedicated my life to," says Hudson.
"I am not the first athlete to be affected by a blanket criteria across all sports in New Zealand that just does not make sense. We saw this last year before Tokyo, with our track and field, javelin, judo and archery athletes - Athletes who all hold national titles, NZ records, made history for our country, but are being penalised by a system that can not be fairly applied across all sporting codes."
Several Summer Games athletes were named provisionally for Tokyo, but dropped out of contention, when they failed to reach standards set for final selection.
"To all my friends selected for the Beijing Olympics, I wish you all the best," says Hudson. "This is your moment so go out there and crush it."
Snow Sports NZ has defended its decision to nominate Hudson, after it was upheld by the Sports Tribunal.
"After considering Piera's results during the qualification period, it was the Snow Sports NZ selectors' view that Piera did not meet the Beijing 2022 nomination criteria," says chief executive Nic Kavanagh.
"This view was found to not be an unreasonable interpretation of the overriding selection criteria at a Sports Tribunal Appeal hearing last week. Accordingly, Snow Sports NZ did not nominate Piera to the NZOC for selection to the Beijing 2022 Winter Games."
"Snow Sports NZ, assisted by High Performance Sport NZ, has offered well-being support to Piera during this difficult time.
"We wish Piera all the best and we thank her for her support of the NZ team competing at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games in the coming weeks."
