History of the New Zealand Winter Games
The first ever NZ Winter Games was in 2009. The event is now held every 2 years and is a multi-discipline winter sports event.
"The inaugural New Zealand Winter Games was held in August 2009 in the New Zealand city of Dunedin, and the towns of Queenstown, Wanaka, and Naseby, which are all situated in the Otago region of New Zealand. Events included alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, and snowboarding, as well as two demonstration events of winter triathlon and luge. Canada was the overall winner of the games, with the United States and Japan in second and third respectively." - wikipedia
Each year the winter games have been held since have had some of the above events included.
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Winter Games New Zealand 2022
The Games did actually go ahead in 2020 and 2021 in spite of COVID. However the event was a bit different to normal as some events didn't happen. No news as yet about whether they'll be back to normal in 2022.
The focus in 2020 was on NZ teams. The year was all about Obsidian...
Winter Games NZ Obsidian
Obsidian was a series of events held over 10 days from the 10th to the 20th August. 3 teams of 7 people competed in 4 different events and filmed their highlights.
Freeride - Classic freeride contest format based on the FWT 4* events held during WGNZ. Terrain will be heli accessed and the terrain will be epic.
Park Jam - A jam session using the rail and jib features of Cardrona Park with judges eliminating the lowest placed athletes until a winner is found.
Big Air - The same jam format as the Park Jam on one of the Cardrona Park Jumps.
Mountain Shred - Each team will shred up a local resort, enhancing natural terrain to session and exploring breathtaking sidecountry. They will then create an edit of this day which will be judged.
Each team of world class NZ athletes, a mix of women and men, were assigned a film crew of 2 to capture all the action and a bit of the downtime off the slopes.
Accommodation
Queenstown and Wanaka both get pretty busy during the Winter Games, so make sure you book your accommodation in plenty of time!
Read more about the Ski Season in Queenstown & Wanaka.
