Category: Sport

Source: Radio New Zealand

High levels of anticipation and excitement have been expressed by some of the Special Olympics’ hometown heroes ahead of its return to Ōtautahi.

The national summer games open in Christchurch next week, the first time in 20 years the city had hosted the pinnacle event.

Held every four years, the games was a major high point for athletes with an intellectual disability.

This year’s edition would see 1205 participants from around the country converge on the Garden City across five days from 10 December.

They would be competing in a total of 10 sporting codes including athletics, basketball, bocce, equestrian, football, golf, indoor bowls, power-lifting, swimming and tenpin bowling.

Christchurch swimmer Caitlin Roy was set to compete in her first national event having taken the sport up three years ago.

The 26-year-old, who has dyspraxia, said she had been putting in the hard yards ahead of the games.

“It’s incredible. Just to be, not quite on the world stage, but to be out there and just displaying what we can do as people with disabilities, that we’re not just in one small bubble, but thousands of us competing against each other in a brand new facility,” she said.

“It’s pretty great.”

Fellow local Andrew Oswin had more games’ experience to call upon ahead of his fifth national summer games appearance.

Now 36, he competed at the Special Olympics as a teenager the last time it was held in Christchurch back in 2005,

“I have met and made friends throughout Special Olympics, at every National Summer Games,” he said.

Although he was gunning for a medal, Oswin explained the Special Olympics was about much more than winning, referencing the “athletes oath”.

The oath reads: Let me win. But if I cannot win, Let me be brave in the attempt.

“The oath means to be determined, to do your best. And whatever you do, get out there and do your team proud,” Oswin said.

Oswin was also handling presenting duties during both opening and closing ceremonies.

Hosting proceedings alongside him would be New Zealand media personality Jason Gunn and fellow athlete Georgia List.

Heading into the games, the 25-year-old swimmer said she was feeling a mix of excitement and nerves.

List was competing in the 100 metre breast-stroke, 50 metre freestyle, 50 metre back-stroke and the mixed medley relay events.

“I started swimming when I was nine. So this is my third nationals that I’m going to,” she said.

“I’ve done many ribbon days and a couple of regionals. I’ve always loved swimming and of course growing up I’ve gotten better and better.”

This year’s games would be spread across six venues throughout Christchurch, including the brand-new and long awaited Parakiore recreation and sports centre.

In recent weeks, athletes had participated in a “test-run” of Parakiore’s pristine facilities.

The throng of participants would also be supported by family and about 700 event volunteers, in what was set to be a multi-million dollar economic boost for the local economy.

Special Olympics’ New Zealand chief executive Fran Scholey said it was a rare opportunity for both athletes and their families.

“[For most people] we participate for our school, maybe in athletics, and we then go to a regional athletics (competition). Our community don’t get that same opportunity,” she said.

“So we get family members that are seeing their son, their daughter, their brother, their sister, aunty, uncle competing for the very first time.

“Everyone should be able to be given the opportunity to represent their club or their school in such an environment.”

The Special Olympics would also serve as a post-quake showcase for Christchurch, in what was being touted as the biggest sporting event in the city this year.

More than 1700 people would be pouring into Christchurch specifically for the Special Olympics, Scholey said.

The opening ceremony for this year’s games would be held on 10 December at Christchurch’s Wolfbrook Arena.

The games close on 14 December with the closing ceremony to be followed by a dinner and disco event for athletes.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Black Sticks men have finished third at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia.

New Zealand beat the hosts 6-1 in the play-off for third.

Sam Lane opened the scoring with two field goals in the opening quarter.

James Hickton added a third with a superb solo effort that included a 60 metre run and a reverse-stick shot to score his first international goal.

The rest of the game then belonged to Lane who added another three goals in the space of 15 minutes.

It included a penalty corner finish, a field goal and a penalty stroke.

The win capped an outstanding tournament for Lane, who finished the match with five goals and moved to the top of the tournament goal-scoring chart with nine.

It was also a special night for two players reaching major milestones. Malachi Buschl brought up his 50th cap for the Black Sticks, and Sam Lane’s five-goal haul lifted him to 51 international goals.

Belgium beat India 1-0 in the final.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Black Sticks men have finished third at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia.

New Zealand beat the hosts 6-1 in the play-off for third.

Sam Lane opened the scoring with two field goals in the opening quarter.

James Hickton added a third with a superb solo effort that included a 60 metre run and a reverse-stick shot to score his first international goal.

The rest of the game then belonged to Lane who added another three goals in the space of 15 minutes.

It included a penalty corner finish, a field goal and a penalty stroke.

The win capped an outstanding tournament for Lane, who finished the match with five goals and moved to the top of the tournament goal-scoring chart with nine.

It was also a special night for two players reaching major milestones. Malachi Buschl brought up his 50th cap for the Black Sticks, and Sam Lane’s five-goal haul lifted him to 51 international goals.

Belgium beat India 1-0 in the final.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Season-ending and sometimes career-threatening, a serious stress fracture can lead athletes from around the world to call on a Christchurch-based surgeon to get them back playing.

Referrals from some of cricket’s biggest names and a successful track record has made orthopaedic spine surgeon Dr Rowan Schouten a trusted ‘go-to guy’, when the careers of not only Black Caps, but Australian, Indian or European athletes are on the line.

Operating on cricketers’ backs is a minor part of Schouten’s public and private surgical role at St George’s Hospital, but it can have major consequences for a player’s livelihood.

Schouten operates on 2-3 cricketers a year.

“When you think we do 200-300 operations a year, it’s a very small niche market as far as our workload goes, but it’s been an interesting role that’s sort of built up over the last 10 years or so.”

While mostly involved with cricket, Schouten has contributed to other sports.

“We know the spine struggles to tolerate hyperextension loading in a lot of sports,” he said. “Stress fractures are not something that are isolated to cricket.

“We see it in dancers, we see it in other sports, like gymnastics and tennis and volleyball, basketball, but certainly cricketers, they’re probably the highest incidence of stress fractures among all athletes.”

Patient zero: Shane Bond

Former Black Cap Shane Bond started it all and continues to be a big supporter of the surgeon’s work.

After years off the field with stress fractures in the middle of his international career, Bond was faced with early retirement or surgery.

The fast-bowler turned to Schouten’s mentor, Dr Grahame Inglis, who successfully pioneered a surgical technique, involving cables and screws, that got Bond back on the park.

Before Inglis retired, he sat Schouten down and shared his technique, and the reasons and indications why he would consider surgery.

Together, Inglis and Schouten operated on “a bunch of New Zealand cricketers in the same setting and then things started to go international, just before he retired”.

The Australians were the first overseas athletes to be “open to the idea of surgery for some of their trouble making fractures” and from there, others were on board.

“A lot of the cricketers around the world, when they have an injury, they reach out to others that have had similar,” Shouten said. “Shane is highly regarded, highly respected, coached throughout the world, so a lot of them contact Shane and then he brings that connection through to us.

“We’ve operated on over 25 professional cricketers worldwide now and it’s not an operation that’s done by a lot of people.

“Technically, it’s not a challenging operation, but it’s having that track record that is appealing and encourages people to come from other parts of the world to do it.

“There are other people around the world that were doing the surgery, in fact, but a lot of them all at the same time, they either retired or they were injured, and couldn’t operate.

“Out of sheer luck, we became the go-to for the world and, as a result, we’ve got some results that are now encouraging enough for other people to take the trip.”

While Schouten does not talk about individuals, Indian fast bowlers Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna and Mayank Yadav, as well as Australians Jason Behrendorff, James Pattinson, Cameron Green and Lance Morris, are among those publicly linked by their national body to the New Zealand doctors.

Black Caps Matt Henry and Kyle Jamieson are also on the list.

Australian tennis players and UK rugby players have sought Schouten out, as did an ice hockey player who did not require surgery, but wanted advice about how to manage load.

Treating an athlete is a team effort and Schouten said imaging from Pacific Radiology allowed him to make decisions about whether to operate or not.

NZ Cricket high performance physiotherapist Dayle Shackel helps manage rehab and recovery of all the international players, who spend two weeks in Christchurch afterwards, before check-ups become virtual.

Schouten has slowly modified and “tweaked” the technique over time, but the “essence of it is still the same”.

“Technology has changed quite a lot, even in the last 5-10 years,” he said. “We have computer navigation in theatre that helps us put everything that we need to insert accurately.

“There’s also a few other elements of the surgery that we’ve added in more recent years that I think are important for its success and to make sure that we deload that part of the spine that is so vulnerable to stress fractures.

“When players get back, not only do they have a fracture that’s a bit more robust from all the surgery, but also the loads that are going through that spine are not as significant.”

Bodies not made for cricket

“It’s a tough gig, being a fast bowler, certainly from a spine perspective. When you think of each of these injuries taking 6-9 months to get back, it can be quite a big burden on these cricketers and their careers.”

A survey of New Zealand male fast-bowlers in domestic cricket a few years ago found “45 percent of them said they’d had a lumbar stress injury at one part of their career”.

“I was talking to Cricket Australia recently as well and they have good data on all their contracted players over the last 12-plus years. When you single out the male fast-bowlers that they have been looking after, they said 39 percent of them had had a lumbar stress injury over that time.”

A stress fracture does not happen out of the blue.

“They’re not one-off traumatic events,” Schouten said. “What happens is you load your spine and you get almost like a bruising of the bone to begin with.

“Then, if you continue to load it, that bruising then accumulates and builds up, and then you get some micro damage and eventually the micro damage, if you continue to load the spine, results in a full fracture.

“It’s a cumulative problem. Often, though, you don’t get symptoms until the very end of that sequence, but you can often see that the stress is brewing on MRI scans.”

As a preventative measure, some cricket governing bodies around the world, like the England & Wales Cricket Board, have their fast-bowlers get Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at intervals throughout their season to see whether any stress is building up.

“Then you can make decisions about whether you select them for a particular tour or whether you ask them to rest for a particular period.

“The key risk factor for stress fractures is how much bowling the players do.

“These days, when you see the amount of cricket that’s being played, and the number of series and the number of formats being played, then quite quickly your workload can escalate significantly into dangerous territory.”

Schouten said overseas bowling loads were mapped out to make sure players did not reach dangerous levels “or they don’t have big spikes in workload”.

“They know that certain types of bowling actions puts people at risk of stress factors, so there’s even thoughts and analysis goes into bowling action, and how that can be improved to reduce the risks.”

Surgery is not for everyone

The “vast majority” of cricketers, playing at all levels of the game, who have stress fractures, do not require surgery, Schouten said.

“A 16-year-old playing schoolboy cricket is a different scenario than an international whose career is on the line and the timing’s important. When they’ve got big contracts coming up or World Cups to play, it’s a slightly different scenario.

“The need to operate on a professional cricketer for stress fractures is very limited and it is normally resolved non-operatively to start with, through a six-month rehab period.

“It’s only the ones that re-occur that we start to consider surgery, those trouble-making ones that keep people sidelined repeatedly for sequential 6-9 month periods.

“[With] surgery, we’ve had some success, but it’s not bulletproof and we need to recognise some of those players who, even post-surgery, have had recurrences.”

Schouten said those players were not completely healed by surgery were a reminder that the bowling action was stressful for the lumbar spine and that surgery was not the only part of the solution, as it “still requires a whole lot of effort from the players to keep themselves conditioned and to manage their workloads appropriately”.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland’s unbeaten run in this year’s A-League season has ended with a 2-1 loss to Newcastle Jets in farcical conditions at Go Media Stadium.

A huge downpour with 20 minutes to go saw players frequently overrunning the ball, which was stopping in huge puddles, with Auckland FC goalkeeper Michael Woud pleading with officials for the game to be halted, because of the amount of water in his goal area.

Referee Alireza Faghani consulted with the captains in the 83rd minute, but then waved play on. There were no further goals and bottom-placed Newcastle took a shock victory over last year’s premiership plate winners.

Auckland FC were the only unbeaten team heading into the match, but they were outgunned on the day by the visitors, who shocked the locals, with Will Dobson smacking in a goal in just the third minute.

The Aucklanders levelled the score, with Louis Verstraete slamming the ball past goalkeeper James Delianov in the 14th minute, but the Auckland fans were silenced in the 42nd minute, when Lachlan Rose latched onto a pass from Dobson and scored to make it 2-1.

The rain started to fall about the 30-minute mark, but halfway through the second half, it became a downpour and visibility was low, as players struggled to control the sodden ball.

Auckland had plenty of scoring chances, including Jesse Randall’s near equaliser in the 73rd minute, but they couldn’t capitalise on them.

Coming off a 1-1 draw with Brisbane last week and now a loss, the Aucklanders will face a buoyant Wellington Phoenix in the second New Zealand derby, after their 2-1 win over Adelaide United on Saturday. The Phoenix are yet beat Auckland FC.

Auckland captain Jake Brimmer said the conditions did not cost his side victory, it was their own effort.

“I think that one hurts the most out of everything,” he told Sky Sport. “I think we generally played well tonight, but didn’t take our chances and that cost us.”

Brimmer said it was difficult with the ball just stopping on the wet pitch.

“That’s no excuse, both teams had to deal with it and unfortunately we were second best on the night.”

Jets captain Kosta Grozos did not mind playing during the downpour.

“In the weather, the boys certainly enjoyed that one, it was fun.”

He said his team were a tightknit group and deserved the win.

“It means the world. Coming off some bad losses, this just makes up for it.”

The Jets move up from 12th to 10th after their win, while Auckland are in third place and the Phoenix sixth.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Tongan rugby league star Eli Katoa says his recovery from brain surgery is going well and he hopes to return to the sport.

The Melbourne Storm second-rower will miss the 2026 NRL season [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/577662/tonga-rugby-league-star-eli-katoa-has-surgery-after-suffering-seizure-activity-during-kiwis-test-match, as he recuperates from the surgery for a brain bleed.

Katoa, 25, collided with a teammate before a Pacific Championships test against the Kiwis at Eden Park on 2 November and then suffered two more headknocks during the match. He was taken to hospital after seizure activity and had surgery overnight.

The former Warrior has posted on [embed: https://www.instagram.com/p/DRob5puEib-/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=b4564489-44a8-45ad-9406-1f62e882f94b Instagram] that he is now back at home “and I’m in a good place now”.

“My recovery is going well and hopefully I can keep ticking all of the boxes that I need!

“And to the Storm fans, in God’s timing, ‘I’ll be back soon’.”

Katoa posted a photo of partner Tuitofa Aloua helping him walk down hospital stairs and said: “To my girl, this woman has been amazing, strong and sticking by my side through it all.

“I appreciate you and I love you so much.”

He also thanked fans for their messages and prayers, and the Storm club and the Tongan rugby league community for their support.

Katoa had not had a head injury assessment for the knock he took in the lead-up to the match. He passed an HIA for the first injury in the test and continued playing, but left the field after the second.

After the match, former Kiwis and Warriors star Shaun Johnson was critical that Katoa was even allowed to play.

“I don’t get how it can even get to that point,” he said on his Play on Sport Show podcast. “There’s going to be fallout over this.

“There’s going to be some heads that will roll, because I do not know how Eli Katoa was actually even allowed to take the field.”

Tonga coach Kristian Woolf defended team doctors, saying everything was “done by the book”.

“We’ve got two very experienced doctors there,” he said. “They’ve done their usual HIA.

“He’s passed all that and passed all that well. My job is not to question doctors.

“They were both comfortable with that and comfortable with him coming back onto the field, so I don’t think there’s anything to worry about there in terms of the process.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand skier Alice Robinson has ignited her season with a dominant win in the women’s giant slalom at the World Cup in Colorado.

Robinson was quickest of 56 skiers in the first run on Copper Mountain and was then equal-fastest on the second run to win by nearly a full second overall.

The 23-year-old from Queenstown has enhanced her status as a strong contender at the February Winter Olympics in Italy, where she will seek to add to the silver medal claimed at last year’s world championships.

She climbs to second on the World Cup standings behind today’s runner-up, Austrian Julia Scheib.

Robinson clocked 59.03 seconds in her first run, which was 0.29 seconds faster than Sweden’s Sara Hector and 0.60 seconds quicker than Scheib.

Last away in the second run, Robinson was slow out of the gates but accelerated through the middle stages of the race to ensure she wouldn’t cede her advantage.

“It was definitely a day of two different runs. The first one I felt in control and so smooth, the second felt out of control, like I was recovering the whole time. I was pretty shocked to finish first,” Robinson said.

“I was really not feeling that confident coming into this race, so I’m really proud to have followed my instincts today.”

Her overall time, 1 minute 58.91seconds, was 0.96 seconds better than Scheib, with Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernesund third.

The third leg of the 10-round World Cup is next weekend in Tremblant, Canada.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Zoe Benson scored the winner as Auckland United clinched a third consecutive National League Championship women’s title with a 1-0 win over cross-city rivals Eastern Suburbs.

It was the fifth clash between the two evenly matched rivals this season, with several Football Fern internationals dotting their respective rosters.

While Eastern Suburbs had the better of the early play, they couldn’t turn pressure into chances and they paid the price when Benson latched on to a long ball from United captain Talisha Green in the 36th minute.

Benson got ahead of her marker and reacted quickly when her shot was parried by goalkeeper Corina Brown, slotting home in the game’s decisive moment.

Eastern Suburbs pushed for an equaliser in the second spell and came closest with 10 minutes to play when defender Yukino Nishizono picked up the ball around 30 metres out and launched a rocket that looked destined for goal but flying just over the crossbar.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The All Blacks Sevens were the only men’s team to make it three wins from three on day one of the world series opening tournament in Dubai, while the Black Ferns Sevens also topped their pool.

Coming off a substandard seventh placing overall in last season’s world series, the New Zealand men have showed early signs of a vast improvement with wins over Great Britain (21-14), Australia (21-17) and Spain (24-7).

The highlight was a last-gasp try-saving tackle from Kele Lasaqa to hold up Australian Ben Dalton over the line in a result which decided the pool, with New Zealand having looked like squandering a 21-0 lead.

“I actually didn’t watch the last bit of that game,” team-mate Rob Rush told the host broadcaster post-game.

“I actually had my head down. I was just saying, ‘I trust the boys, I trust the boys’. I should have said, ‘I trust the TMO, I trust the TMO’.

“It was good that the boys could finish real hearty like that. It was mean.”

New Zealand’s semi-final opponents are Fiji, while France and Australia will contest the other semi.

Meanwhile, the series defending champion Black Ferns Sevens produced wins over the France (24-21) and Fiji (31-12) but they were stunned 21-17 by the United States – the first win by the Americans over New Zealand in 15 matches.

The Black Ferns Sevens lost concentration late in the contest after leading 17-7

The women’s semi-finals will see New Zealand face surprise packets Japan and unbeaten Australia play Fiji.

Australia are chasing a sixth successive title in Dubai.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Black Ferns Sevens have their 2025/26 World Rugby sevens campaign off to a winning start, overcoming France 24-21 in their opening game at Dubai.

Without try scoring superstar Michaela Brake, pregnant with her first child, the NZ women jumped out to an early advantage through tries from Jorja Miller and Risi Pouri-Lane, who were last seen at the Rugby World Cup 15s tournament.

The French closed the margin with a converted try before half-time, but Alena Saili answered for the Ferns after the break.

Alycia Christiaens kept France close, but Miller put the contest beyond doubt with her second try, converted by debutant Braxton Sorenson-McGee.

Teenage newcomer Mariama Tandiang also secured a try double after the final siren, but her team were still short of victory in a cut-throat tournament format contested by just eight teams, with the top two from each pool progressing to semi-finals.

New Zealand face United States later on Saturday NZT, then Fiji early Sunday morning. The Fijians accounted for USA 19-7 in their opening encounter, while Australia were too strong for Japan, 31-7.

Meanwhile, the All Blacks Sevens have defeated Great Britain in their opening game.

The sides were locked at seven-all at half-time, and the match remained tight until the All Blacks sevens scored in the 14th minute to win 21-14.

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