A team of people are helping her raise the money she will need to achieve this, and ensure she has the right equipment and coaching.
Pultron Composites and Sunshine Brewing have generously stepped up as principal sponsors and a committee has been assembled to arrange fundraising events, including an auction in October and a raffle, with many Gisborne businesses supplying cash and prizes.
Vette is doing a series of talks at primary schools around Gisborne as part of her sponsorship with Pultron.
She has been to one training camp in Tahiti already this year but tore her MCL ligament early in the week and had to sit out the rest of the training. She tried to take in as much as she could from the spectator boat that takes the surfers out to the notoriously dangerous break.
With the help of her sponsors, Vette is on a fundraising mission to make her Olympic dream come true.
Vette started surfing when she was two years old — her dad pushing her in on the waves outside their home in Makorori.
“I carried on that passion and love for the ocean and surfing, and it was something my whole family loved,” she says.
She continued surfing while at primary school but it wasn’t until she was 11 that she wanted to start competing.
She began with Gisborne Boardriders Club and later went to regional events.
At 16 she represented New Zealand in Japan and later competed in the United States before joining the junior pro circuit in Australia.
She was at a high point of her career when her dad died.
“Dad gave me the love of the ocean but he was also my surfing coach, so I lost my coach and dad at the same time.”
She said it would have been easy to stay on the couch during that tough time but she kept surfing and didn’t let the tragedy stop her moving forward.
It was around this time her mum packed up the car and took her brother Finn — also a talented surfer — and her to the nationals in Piha.
“It was the last thing we felt like doing but we went along. After a week of competing, my brother and I came away with national titles.
“We were both feeling so low in our lives and like something was missing, but we dug deep throughout that week.
“We were competing for our dad.”
Vette went from the high of winning a national title to having the most challenging year of competition the following year.
“After a really bad year I had to reflect. I had to ask myself if I wanted to do this anymore.
“I had faith that I would come out the other side and I had to trust in that process.”
She related this to the students at Makaraka School and how they, too, needed to keep going in times of hardship.
“Losing is part of life and you learn from it. The secret is to not give up and to keep trying.”
This year, boosted by her career-first victory on the World Qualifying Series in March, Vette competed for New Zealand at her second World Surfing Games in El Salvador — an Olympic Games qualification event.
She had been training hard but got bitten by a jellyfish 10 minutes into her first-round heat, finished third and dropped into the repechage heats.
She didn’t give up.
“I knew I had a long road ahead to qualify for the Olympics and I was off to a bad start so I visualised myself qualifying.
“I never gave up. I had determination and resilience and I dug deep.”
Vette battled her way through several repechages to end up being the top-ranked athlete from Oceania and earning provisional qualification for the Olympic Games — heading off fellow New Zealander Paige Hareb.
Vette said she would go into the Games as an underdog but that only spurred her on.
“I’m going to train harder, learn as much as I can and spend more time in the ocean.”
