A warning that this podcast contains discussion around suicide. You can find support services in our show notes. Kyota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. On August ninth, twenty twenty one, the day after the Tokyo Olympics ended, cyclist Olivia Podmore died in a suspected suicide. She had represented New Zealand the twenty sixteen Olympics but was not selected.
Five years later, her death sent shock waves through the close knit cycling community and wider sporting network and the culture at cycling and Z was eventually investigated. Now over three years later, a coronial inquiry and Podmore's death is due to begin today. And then Herald reported Tom Delaine has been covering the story for the last three years and joins us now on the front page to discuss
Olivia Podmore's life, career and her tragic death. So, Tom, can you give us a brief overview of Olivia's career prior and her rise to the top.
Yeah, So, as anyone in a New Zealand national sporting team, she was a talented young athlete.
She grew up in christ Church.
Her mother Ninky, said that she always had a fairly care free attitude to her cycling in her junior years.
She had obvious talents.
And that sort of care free attitude, she said, actually she thought helped her in the early days. She didn't get two worked up about the competition, she didn't overtrain, and that relaxed attitude helped her in junior competitions. She moved in to become a sprint cyclist, so you know, nerves and seconds counted in that kind of competition. She
had a bit of a sporting pedigree as well. So both her parents were keen cyclists and her great grandfather was actually an Olympic weightlifter in the nineteen twenty eight Olympics. So yeah, after finishing school at seventeen, so she went straight in to train at the High Performance Sport New Zealand Center in Cambridge, and she made the twenty sixteen Reo Olympics when she was nineteen. She was selected for three sprint events there. But it was somewhat it was
a turbulent experience those those twenty sixteen games. In her own words, she describes the experiences well, she describes it as it wasn't a great experience for me. She's somewhat underperformed in the events, and she had quite a dramatic crash in the twenty sixteen Olympics where she was knocked out for about forty five seconds, she says, and she rode straight after that in another event directly after being concussed, and that she didn't perform well understandably in that next event.
So she had a quick introduction into the Olympic sports, as I guess a lot of cyclists are quite young when they performed. But yeah, quick introduction to the Olympic sport. But yeah, as a youth, quite quite relaxed about the sport.
So fast forward to twenty twenty one. At what point does she learn that she's not going to be selected to go to Tokyo.
The twenty twenty Tokyo Games were delayed obviously a year due to COVID, so they actually happened in twenty twenty one, and that made the selection process more drawn out. She wasn't selected technically, She found out she wasn't selected in August twenty twenty, but the team selection was dragged out for a year longer. There was a bunch of complicating
factors around her non selection in the team. It's all sort of draws back to the twenty sixteen Games, where you know her place within Cycling New Zealand sort of surrounded by controversy. It's all come out since since her death. Podmore was caught up in a significant event that happened in the training camp prior to the twenty sixteen Rio Games that were in Bordeaux, France, six weeks out from
those Rio Games. So basically a night out among the athletes and the coaches left Podmore without a roommate in the early hours of the morning. So she was nineteen years old then, so she reported to management at Cycling New Zealand the missing athlete. So by Podmore reporting that a member of the Cycling New Zealand team hadn't come home that night, that kicked off a process by basically exposing that this athlete was in a relationship with a
Cycling New Zealand coach. That whole controversy, which which sort of begun right before the twenty sixteen Games, then eventually led into a whole inquiry within Cycling New Zealand. Following the twenty sixteen Olympics, so basically during that period she was caught up in this inquiry and it's since been exposed with a herald exposed.
Following her death.
That Podmore has understood to be an athlete that was pressured to lie during that inquiry was a twenty eighteen inquiry by Mike Herron, so that was reported in the inquiry that didn't name pod So she had already been pressured to lie within this inquiry around a relationship between a coach at Cycling New Zealand and an athlete. Following that, there's perceptions that she was marginalized within the High Performance
Sport Cambridge camp following that inquiry. So the twenty eighteen Heron report found that there was favoritism from Peden to the athlete in which she was in a inappropriate relationship with people close to her. Yeah, as I said, felt that Podmore was marginalized within the camp following her involvement in that inquiry.
So that was all in the background.
She was also given a twenty thousand grand sporting grant for welfare reasons and the lead up to twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, and there was a whole lot of issues
with her own performance during that period. To complicate matters even further, her partner in some of the sprint events that she was attempting to be selected for the twenty twenty Tokyo Games, Tesha Hansen, was also in a legal dispute with Cycling New Zealand over perceived obstacles in the selection path for her after they were initially rejected in
twenty nineteen from make the team. So anyway, in short, there was a whole lot of build up and hurdles that Podma had to face to get to the Tokyo Olympics. A lot of her friends and family felt that she was unfairly treated in not making the team, but she didn't.
We've lost a sister, a friend, and a fighter. Olivia may have been the girl that you saw at the supermarket, at the gym, on the track on TV. She was loved and will be sorely missed.
So today marks the start of the coronial inquest into Olivia's death. How long is this set to run for and what's it expected to cover?
So it's set to run for three weeks.
So in a technical sense, Corona's conduct inquiries to determine the cause and circumstances of death and to identify ways to prevent similar death in the future. In terms of the pod More inquiry, there'll be more than twenty five witnesses are expected to be called during the three weeks. That'll include former coaches of Podmore, past and present leaders of Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand,
and also health professionals who treated Podmore. There's a number of non publication orders around names of health professionals and various people in a professional sense that were involved in Podmore, but there'll all be witnesses also speaking. Podmore's father Phil
and her brother Mitchell, who participated in the inquest. They've never publicly spoken since Olivia's death, and I spoke to Phil in twenty twenty one after his daughter's death and he was He always maintained that he wouldn't speak publicly until the coronial inquiry, so it's taken three years to get to this point, but he'll be there. And also Olivia's mum, Kay, who's spoken a lot publicly since since
her daughter's death and been highly critical of Cycling New Zealand. Yeah, in terms of what it's going to traverse the inquiry, you know. Basically, it'll be looking at the conditions within Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sport and her medical care and how that environment contributed to her suspected suicide. There was a previous inquiry that began at the end of twenty twenty one that was again conducted by Casey Mike Caron who did the twenty eighteen inquiry into culture
at Cycling New Zealand. It's hard not to see that inquiri as I mean, it's clearly a direct result of Podmore's death. But technically that inquiry into Cycling New Zealand could not really delve into the individual circumstances and factors that led to Podmore's death. It had to be focused more around the culture of the organization. So this coronial inquiry can delve directly into the personal circumstances of Olivia's
experience there and treatment there. Also integral to the coronal inquiry as Olivia's medical records until now i've not been made public, been told by Ninki, her mum and her Nick's partner Chris Middleton, is over a thousand documents that they obtained from High Performance Sport in New Zealand and proves to be pretty disturbing reading from what I've been told, So her treatment and truman by coaches and medical records will come out in this coronial inquiry.
You mentioned Mike Heron's report into Cycling New Zealand that was ordered after Olivia's death. It found a number of cultural and structural deficiencies at the sporting organization which prioritizes medals over well being. What were some of those revelations.
Yeah, so that was sort of the defining catchphrase that came out of that finding an organization that prioritizes medals over well being. In summary of the findings was a damning report. Most alarming among the findings was athletes had a sense of a fear of reprisals for raising issues
with coaches and management. There was also a lot of criticism of the centralized high performance base in Cambridge that carries a risk for athlete well being, and Heron concluded that that having that base, you know, in Cambridge, where athletes from all around the country would travel to away from their families and live and train, that system should
be entirely reconsidered. Also, a lack of transparency around selection at Cycling New Zealand for you know, Olympics and big events was highlighted as problematic and a funding model at odds with well being. The Hearon Report released in twenty
twenty two. It also found a lack of appropriate women's health support and a reliance on traditional mail networks, particularly within the coaching environment where there was a lack of women and diversity, and Podmore's coaches herself were the direct ones for her were men.
It's been over two years since that report came out, to your understanding, has there been much change in the organization since then?
Yeah, so there was.
There has been a at least publiclyff fit amongst Sport New Zealand high Performance Sport New Zealand to have athlete well being more center front and center in terms of how they structure their you know, their system, their runs towards big events like like Olympics and that sort of thing.
At the end of twenty twenty one, you know, just months after Olivia's death, High Performance Sport in New Zealand confirmed it would be funding seven point four million dollars to athlete well being initiatives over the next three years.
So that was I guess, you know, significant tangible progress in terms of, you know, focusing on athlete well being over just results, and the CEO of High Performance Sport in New Zealand and Sport in New Zealand, Railing Castle, said that they would be working with the national sporting organizations to improve mental health literacy in athlete and having an athlete voice throughout the system.
So yeah, I mean they have been conscious of.
It and there has been more initiatives to have athlete input into how they're doing at these various sporting organizations. Whether that's translated to better athlete wellbeing, it's hard to measure.
It stings a lot that she's not here now, like she should have been up there with us, but she's just taught us so much and she's with all of us every single day. Yeah, I think it's so hard to put into words. It's definitely how much it is a much nicer place to be here now. But we've always had a great support crew.
Yeah. Things interesting when coronial inquests like this come out because they do happen years after the event, years after the death, and once we get to the results of the coronial inquest, which we won't know, we don't get a date exactly of when we get the results of the coronial inquest or the report. It seems to me like organizations have that act stop of saying, oh, well, in the years after we did this, we did this,
we did this. But do you think given the secrecy and they haven't been transparent in any of this either, that a lot of dirty laundry that we haven't seen will come out in this inquest and they don't they won't have that option of saying we've done this, this, and this, because that may not be enough.
Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of obviously three weeks, there's a lot of material that's going to come out in that in that time, and it's clear from speaking to friends and family that she was getting psychological help within the organization, and that will be delved into in some detail, and whether there was appropriate duty of care
from the organization around her. Certainly, speaking to friends of hers in the year before she died or when she'd found out that she wasn't making the Olympic team, they were pretty they were totally clear that she was really struggling mentally during that period and she was getting psychological
help through at least the organization. Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sports were aware that she was dealing with these issues, and as I said, there's over a thousand documents, help medical documents that are going to be explored in the inquiry, so you know, hard to believe there won't be some pretty concerning details brought out about the state
she was in. Also delving into the coaching environment within the organization, so we've The Herald wrote about the toxic culture that was in place at Cycling New Zealand in the years prior to the twenty twenty Tokyo twenty twenty one happened in twenty twenty one, but the the Olympic cycle leading up to those games exposed a lot of toxic cultural elements to selection around the coaches there at
the time. The lead sprint coach German Renee Wolfe and also the head selector for Cycling New Zealand Martin barras two coaches that some of their coaching style was heavily criticized by other athletes within the organization. Following Podmore's death, she obviously wasn't selected and both those coaches were removed from the organization or resigned, is the official line within
about six months of Podmore's death. So I think that the depth of an unhealthy environment within cycling New Zealand will be, you would hope, will be laid bare in the inquiry in a lot more detail than we've had before.
Tom, you've been following this story for three years now. I remember you wrote this big feature at the end of twenty twenty one about Olivia talking to her friends and family about her and her life. What are some of their memories that stick out to you?
Yeah, I mean that process of doing that feature took months and spoke to a lot of people connected with her. I was struck by what a popular person she was and what a wide network of people she had. And I guess you know that these after someone's death in a suspected suicide, people always you know, it's not pretty common narrative to hear that people didn't see the warning signs and that sort of thing.
Some people knew she was dealing with issues.
I know the start of that that days before she died, she was out skiing with former Olympic roller Eric Murray and another close friend of hers. I think she lived with him in Cambridge and they describe having this great fun weekend. This was literally days before she died, and just how that, you know, just that not really saying that the magnitude of what was about to happen. Well,
also being somewhat aware of her struggles. I mean, you know, it's interesting delving into a person's personal history like I did for that piece. Rereading it today, you just realize all the things she had to deal with as well. We you know, we traverses a little bit of her recreational drug use in the last year. Also just the situation she had to deal with her whole life. She had an abortion as a teenager, all the chaos that was that she was caught up with in cycling New Zealand.
I guess.
I mean, you know, it's twofold. The memories from them, a lot of them were quite heartbreaking in terms of the stuff she'd had to deal with. But also she seemed like a person, a very affable, friendly person who you know, was obviously struggling with a lot, but also you know, very talented and had a lot of friendships in her life. And yeah, I guess this inquiry, I
guess will be focusing in a way. It's an opportunity to focus on her as a person more than obviously the institutional negligence that perhaps contributed to her death would be delved into. But you know, there's going to be interviews with family members and it's really focused on her. That is, by definition what this is. So it'll be an opportunity to delve into her personal issues and I guess to some extent you'll get insight into the kind.
Of person she is.
Thanks for joining us, Tom, Thank you. That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at NZ Herald dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.