Nico Porteous has dropped the curtain on New Zealand’s greatest Winter Games, overcoming the elements and a field of established champions to win the Olympic freeski halfpipe title. The 20-year-old from the South Island resort town of Wanaka soared and spun to New Zealand’s second gold medal at a Winter Olympics on Saturday, two weeks to the day after Zoi Sadowski-Synnott’s history-making first.
Remarkably, only 12 of the 91 nations competing here have managed to win more golds than two athletes from a small lakeside town. “We both come from a town of ten thousand people and skiing and snowboarding is our passion,” Porteous said.
