Vili and Drysdale top NZ athletes

JOHN SELKIRK/Dominion Post

GOLDEN GIRLS: Valerie Vili, sportswoman of the year and overall Halbert Trust NZ sportsperson of the year, and her coach, Kirstin Hellier, coach of the year, display their trophies at an athletics meet at west Auckland, where Vili was competing. Mahe Drysdale was sportsman of the year.

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It was V for Victory at the Halberg Awards in Christchurch last night but supreme winner Valerie Vili was up in Auckland creating another world first.

The world shot put champion hurled two 20m-plus throws - the best recorded anywhere this year - in an international athletics meet at Waitakere Stadium and then learned she had won the Sportswoman of the Year and the overall Westpac-sponsored Halberg Award.

"I'm happy to top off 2007 with this beautiful thing," Vili said as she clutched a trophy presented to her by 1996 Halberg Award winner and double Olympic swimming gold medallist Danyon Loader.

Earlier, after winning the sportswoman title from three other world champions, Vili recalled her 2007 world championship gold medal winning effort in Osaka, Japan.

The Beijing Olympic Games gold medal favourite said her coaches, including Kirsten Hellier - who won coach of the year last night - had urged her to "do this one for your Dad", in memory of Vili's father who died last year

"And, bang, I smacked the crap out of it," said Vili to the mirth of the black-tie clad audience in the Christchurch Town Hall, who saw her get her trophies via a video link.

Vili, 23, headed off the world single scull rowing champion Mahe Drysdale (Sportsman of the Year) - the 2006 Halberg Award winner - and the winning coxless four at last year's World Rowing Championships (Sports Team of the Year) to collect the supreme Halberg Award.

She was presented with the silver trophy in an emotional ceremony at Waitakere Stadium by Loader, winner of two Olympic gold medals.

In a sign of her dedication to her ultimate goal - an Olympic gold medal in Beijing in August - Vili chose not to attend the awards ceremony but instead compete at an international event in west Auckland last night.

She rewarded those present with her first two throws of the year past 20m, including one of 20.13m, just 7cm short of her record for a competitive throw on New Zealand soil.

Vili said she was delighted to receive the award at an athletics meeting.

"I got to share the success with real athletics people in an environment that I'm used to," she said.

Vili said the awards occasion did not play any part in motivating her to make such good throws last night.

"I didn't really think about the Halberg awards until I'd finished competing. I knew they were on but my first and foremost focus was on the competition," she said.

"What spurred me on was having my family there - giving them the opportunity to see what I do. To throw over 20m and give them a great show was special."

Vili said she was also thrilled at the honour handed to Hellier.

"Athletics is a very individual sport and it can get quite lonesome. We travel together and it's awesome to have her around. She knows her thing and I know my thing and together we make a great team."

Hellier let it slip that Vili competed last night with a slight back injury, which she got sprinting on wet grass in training.

She said Vili was a pleasure to train.

"You set her a task and she'll do it," Hellier said.

"She knows what she wants, she knows what she has to do and I'm very fortunate in that she trusts in me that we're doing the right thing."

Vili's star-studded 2007 season was highlighted by a 20.54m winning throw in the world championships final in Osaka. The 2006 Commonwealth Games champion also set New Zealand and Oceania records and a world-best throw for 2007. Vili became the first Kiwi, to win all three world championship titles (youth, junior and senior). She also became only the second New Zealander to win a senior world track and field title, following in the footsteps of discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina, who took out the Halberg Award in 1997.

Hellier - also speaking from Waitakere Stadium - said the pair were "coach and athlete, great mates, family - it's a package deal".

Vili heads to Australia on Thursday to train and compete in the Australian National Championships before heading to the world indoor championships in Valencia.

Athletics New Zealand chief executive Scott Newman said the first supreme Halberg award to someone in athletics since discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina won in 1998 was great news.

"It's a global sport and it's hard for us here in New Zealand to get the sport in the forefront," he said.

"We certainly need somebody of Valerie's calibre every now and then to give it a little bit of a shot in the arm, and at her age she could hang on for the next 10 years for us and be an outstanding ambassador for us."

Drysdale, was up against Alinghi America's Cup skipper Brad Butterworth, lightweight world rowing champion Duncan Grant, and world mountain running champion Jonathan Wyatt. The coxless four got line honours in team of the year from the women's double scull, the men's coxless pair and the Team New Zealand yachties.

Rowing picked up its third gong when world under-23 champion Emma Twigg won the emerging talent prize, which carries a $40,000 scholarship.

Athletics' golden evening was completed when former Olympic marathon bronze medallists Lorraine Moller (1992) and Mike Ryan (1968) were inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame by 1976 Olympic 1500m champion John Walker.

HALBERG WINNERS

Supreme award: Valerie Vili (athletics).

Sportsman of the year: Mahe Drysdale (rowing).

Sportswoman of the year: Valerie Vili.

Sports team of the year: Men's coxless rowing four.

Coach of the year: Kirsten Hellier (athletics).

Emerging talent award: Emma Twigg (rowing).

-with NZPA

- © Fairfax NZ News