Snowsports New Zealand is having a year to remember. From a record medal haul at the Beijing Winter Olympics last month to snowboarder Tiarn Collins making history by winning a World Cup title on Sunday night.
Collins became the first New Zealander to win a World Cup title, taking the victory in slopestyle and wrapping up a season to remember for New Zealand's winter athletes.
Whether it be the Olympics, X Games, World Cup or Freeride World Tour, New Zealand has consistently punched above its weight, and Snowsports New Zealand chief executive Nic Cavanagh said it was the culmination of a decade of hard work and planning behind the scenes.
It hasn't gone unnoticed either.
Cavanagh told 1News New Zealand's high performance programme and youth development was turning heads around the globe and even attracting prospects with dual citizenship.
"I know that many other international federations and other teams going around the globe look at the New Zealand team and look at what we've done and how we've built on that over the last 10 years," Cavanagh said.
"We're also now starting to attract other dual-citizen athletes, and that's one part of the success we've seen is the recognition from other nations that we're doing a really good job."
"Young 12, 13-year-olds out there in the States are looking at our junior team and what we're doing at a junior level. Certainly the support we've got at that group level I believe is world class."
It's a complete turnaround to what things used to be like when Cavanagh first joined SSNZ in 2012, where dual-citizens would rather represent the other nation rather than New Zealand.
"A couple of young snowboarders who went to the junior worlds and competed for New Zealand, that talent got quickly grabbed by the Americans, and they're now in the American system," Cavanagh said.
One of those snowboarders was Lyon Farrell, who won a silver medal in halfpipe at the 2014 junior world championships representing New Zealand.
Since switching allegiances to the US, his country of birth, he has been unable to crack into the highly competitive Olympic teams for either PyeongChang 2018 or Beijing 2022.
Now 23, it is unlikely Farrell will ever compete at the Olympics in a sport that favours youth.
"We keep in close contact with them and we've heard that perhaps they made the wrong choice way back then and had they been in the New Zealand system their journey would have been quite different," Cavanagh said.
Who knows, the likes of Farrell could've joined Nico Porteous and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott as Kiwis on the podium at the Beijing Games.
With the northern hemisphere season wrapping up, the New Zealand athletes are set to arrive home in the coming weeks, and Cavanagh said celebrations were being planned for May.
"We'll look to start something off on a national road tour around the 22nd or 23rd of May, and try and get around all our small towns and clubs and really take the medals around and show them off," Cavanagh said.
He hoped youngsters would not only be inspired by their success, but also the way they went about winning.
"If you look at the way that Zoi in particular won her gold medal, and then with the silver medal you could see that winning is not just the ultimate outcome here, it's how you win.
"It's not all about winning, it's about living and breathing and thriving in the alpine up in the mountains.
"They're living their best lives, they're living their dreams, travelling the globe, competing internationally on the world stage up in the mountains, it's a good time to be a young snowsports athlete that's for sure."
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