Champ encourages Herald's stars

(L to R) Athletics World Champion Valerie Vili with Sam Webster (cycling), Bianca Barbarich-Bacher (yachting), Teneale Hatton (kayaking and surf lifesaving), James McDonald (racing) and Alex Maloney (yachting). Photo / Sarah Ivey

The biggest name in New Zealand sport yesterday had some inspiring words for the country's next crop of top sports stars.

World and Olympic shotput champion Valerie Vili took time out of her busy schedule to help honour seven of New Zealand's most promising young sportspeople at the New Zealand Herald Future Stars of Sport awards.

This year's recipients, jockey James McDonald, yachting champions Bianca Barbarich-Bacher and Alex Maloney, Black Stick Gemma Flynn, kayaker/surf lifesaver Teneale Hatton, Paralympic swimmer Cameron Leslie and junior world cycling champion Sam Webster, were honoured at an awards luncheon at the Millennium Institute.

Vili, a former Future Stars award winner, told the gathering of young stars that they are entering an important time in their career.

"I remember standing in your position in 2001, being really scared and nervous and standing around just waiting for a feed.

"It's a crucial time in your career, you're at the cutting edge, the things you do now will decide whether you make it or break it."

Vili's words particularly resonated with Webster - a triple gold medallist at last year's junior world cycling champs in Moscow.

"I was pretty chuffed with how things had gone and I was being compared to [Scottish cyclist] Chris Hoy and Sarah Ulmer, but then I came to realise that that was all I wanted."

So last December Webster was shipped off to Melbourne to spend a month on intensive training to help prepare him for a tilt at the next level. The former Auckland Grammar student said he has his sights set on Olympic gold in 2012, but recognises he has a lot of hard work ahead.

"It'll be many years before I can do what I did at a junior level at the senior level, but I want to start making some headway, I want to start stamping my foot down and saying that I'm one to watch out for."

The Olympic podium is also a big lure for 420 world champions Bianca Barbarich-Bacher and Alex Maloney, who are looking to make the step up to the Olympic classes during the next 12 months.

Paralympic swimmer Cameron Leslie, who has already reached the top in his sport, is hungry for more success in 2012.

The only winner from a non-Olympic sport this year was 18-year-old jockey James McDonald.

It is the first time in the long history of the awards the "sport of kings" has been a winner.

McDonald made an instant impact on the tough world of thoroughbred racing, winning the McBeath Trophy as the country's leading apprentice in his first two seasons.

He upstaged older and more experienced rivals to claim the premiership as the leading jockey in the 2008-09 season, winning 125 races and $2,564,290 in stake money.