Olympic champions Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous support dry-slope training facility plan

Winter Olympic Games medalists Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, left, and Nico Porteous. Photo / Getty Images

A proposed year-round dry-slope training facility in the Cardrona Valley would improve the wellbeing of New Zealand’s winter sport athletes and their chances of future gold medal success, a resource consent panel was told in Wānaka yesterday.

The Queenstown Lakes District Council hearings panel was reviewing submissions on the planned training slope, after New Zealand Snow Sports filed for resource consent late last year.

Snow Sports New Zealand chief executive Nic Cavanagh told the panel that the facility would enable them to continue the success they found at last year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, where New Zealand won its first gold medals in the history of the event.

“The ability to have a high-class training facility year-round that affords our young, teenage athletes to stay home and train, we believe is going to be a huge factor in ensuring their wellbeing moving forward,” he said.

“It provides an opportunity for the next generation of our heroes and heroines to inspire New Zealand.”

The panel also heard from Wānaka Winter Olympians Nico Porteous and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, who called in via video link from a training camp in Mt Hood, Oregon.

Sadowski-Synnott said that practising on an airbag was a “huge enabler” of her gold medal success last year, and having a dry-slope facility in New Zealand would make such training more accessible.

“We spent a lot of time and money travelling overseas to go train at these facilities. If we had it at home it would make a big difference in our schedule.”

Porteous said removing the need for as much travel would benefit not only himself and Zoi, but also the “up-and-coming generation of skiers and snowboarders”.

“I think it’s quite tough when travelling overseas, especially being so young and away from family and friends for long periods of time.”

Queenstown Lakes District Council planner Erica Walker and consultant landscape architect Richard Denney have recommended resource consent be refused because the facility would be visible from multiple viewpoints in the valley and would not maintain the open character of the landscape.

Chief among their concerns are the white airbags athletes will use when performing tricks, which would be visible on a 300m stretch of Cardrona Valley Rd.

SSNZ agreed to a condition that would deflate the airbags when they are not in use for more than 14 days, but council representatives were concerned about the viability of this arrangement.

Independent hearing commissioner Jan Caunter tasked SSNZ with further reviewing their landscape plan before finalising a submission by 3pm on Friday, July 7.

A decision from the commissioner is expected before August 1.