Tui Wikohika is up against the world's top snowboarders - but doesn't have their privileges

Thursday, 18 October 2018

Flying high: Tui Wikohika is hoping to win an AMP Scholarship so he can train overseas and become an Olympian snowboarder, representing New Zealand.

He's been snowboarding since age four, and Tui Wikohika wants to ride all the way to the Olympics. But how does a kid from a family of seven in the tiny town of Raetihi, population 1002, make it to the top?

For Tui Wikohika, the mountain has always been there. It's the first thing he sees in the morning, when he wakes with the sun to do his school work. It's waiting quietly in the distance as he helps pack the family's gear into the van. For as long as he can remember – around about age four, when his dad first strapped him into a snowboard – it's been responding to the press of his feet.

As a 10-year-old, when he entered and won his first competition on its slopes, it helped him realise his goal. 'I want to become an athlete and go to the Olympics for a gold medal,' says the quietly-spoken 14-year-old. 'That's my dream.'

The rainbow kid: Tui Wikohika at home in Raetihi with the trick board he and his Dad made. He uses it to practice on the tramp.

Today the sky is cerulean, the snow so bright to look at it without goggles makes your eyes swirl. There's hardly a breath of wind,and the landscape stretches lazily into the distance. In snow sports terminology, it's a bluebird day.

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'He’s real determined, and the thing is that he believes in himself,' Tui's Dad Peter Wikohika says.

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Tui Wikohika competing at Turoa ski area, aged 10.

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Tui Wikohika, 14, wearing his medals at home in Raetihi with his brother Lee, 7, dad Peter and sister Putiputi, 5

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But Ruapehu isn't an ordinary mountain. This morning's clear sky could be this afternoon's blizzard. Blisteringly cold winds blow straight across its flanks, turning snow into ice and a fun day up the slopes into a teeth-clenching, frozen-nosed nightmare.

A grab off a jump on Turoa ski field. Mt Ruapehu.

'It's raw weather up here, it's a volcano,' enthuses Tui's dad, Peter Wikohika. 'It's pretty beasty, it's a beast of a maunga, and the conditions can vary from being awesome powder to rock solid ice.'

We watch as Tui straps up, preparing to hit Tūroa's High Flyer snow park. On the chairlift, I'd asked the second-ranked New Zealand junior snowboard champion what trick he's currently trying to master. 'I'm just trying to work on my 7s,' he'd said, making it sound like he was learning to tie up a shoelace, if a shoelace were a 720 degree turn, two full rotations 15 metres in the air with a plank of wood strapped to your feet.

'I’m going to try and get overseas and train like all the other kids, because they’re always training and don’t have a break, they’re just winter, winter, winter,' Tui says.

'Oh right, right,' I say, nodding my head. Ten minutes later, I face-plant after riding three metres down a gentle slope while holding a tripod. Stupid slushy spring snow.

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The view to the maunga from the Wikohika's home n Raetihi.

'Tui's learned how to ride in all those conditions, and this environment,' Peter Wikohika goes on. Tui's brother Lee, 7, lies beside him, tiny board dangling from his feet, sculpting a snowball. A skier walks past, waving hello. 'When he goes and competes down south and people are complaining about the conditions he's like 'Oh, it's just another day',' his dad says. 'If he can ride here, he can ride anywhere.'

Tui, who is of Ngati Uenuku and Ngati Rangi descent, entered his first snowboard competition four years ago. He won it. Today, he can barely hold all his medals in one hand. Since winning best snowboarding team in the North Island with his Raetihi Primary School crew in 2014, he's consistently medalled at the country's top snowboarding events.

Tui, at home with some of his family in the small North Island town of Raetihi.

Most recently, he came second overall at the Snow Sports New Zealand Junior Freestyle Nationals in Cardrona, and won gold in the highly-coveted Slopestyle category. 'It's like a mixture of rails and jumps, so what you do and how you do it in the park is how you're scored, for amplitude, style, and fluidity,' Tui explains.

'I was really surprised that a full season up here with my coach and a little bit of work down south earlier this year helped me get that top spot in nationals. I got my first gold medal down there, so I'm super stoked and happy with that.'

Some of those jumps are insane. Do you ever get scared?

'I usually think, going into a new trick, that I have that trick and it's my trick. So I can make it mine, and that's how I get over the fear.'

Tūroa ski field, Mt Ruapehu, from the Park Lane chairlift in spring.

But Tui is at a crossroads. To succeed in the ultra-competitive world of snowboarding, it's no longer enough to train for one season a year. Other kids on the New Zealand circuit are preparing to leave for winters in the United States, Canada, Japan. But, as the second-oldest of five children living in the tiny central North Island town of Raetihi, there's not a lot of spare cash around.

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So far, Tui has kept up. In the summer, he practices his big air tricks on the trampoline on a skateboard glued to a pair of old shoes. His Dad bought an ancient skate ramp off Trade Me, hefting it into place below the front deck with a water pipe bolted to wooden blocks for a rail. He wakeboards off the back of a cousin's boat, and rides motocross on the paddocks around Waimarino.

At a time the national conversation has turned to values, it would be nice to think New Zealand is a country of equal opportunity. But for Tui, his success so far is down to a determination to punch above his weight, to strive for the top with the backing of a fiercely proud community.

But the new AMP/Stuff Survey of Values 2018 shows New Zealanders do place importance on supporting the little guy. Perhaps it's no surprise in a small nation trying to find its place on the world stage, but it appears as one of our core values: 75 per cent of us love to celebrate the underdog.

Locals have always rallied around Tui. He's got dedicated sponsors, and he's been working part-time at New World for the past year to fund his own snowboarding. That's when he's not cutting firewood sell in raffles. But still, there are times when he's missed out on opportunities; after nationals last year, he had to turn down a spot on an elite training camp.

'We just went and had an ice-cream and I said 'Sorry I couldn't put you in it, but that's just life, we have to go and hop on a plane tomorrow and head home and we'll just try and get some training in our way. With our gear',' Wikohika says.

'He's all good about it, he understands. He's real determined, and the thing is that he believes in himself. He's loved it since he was a kid, he'd do anything to make it happen. He just needs some opportunities like all these other kids get.'

In the meantime, coach Andrew Manuel has begun entering Tui in adult competitions, just to test his skills. At a national Rail Jam event in September he came second, riding against men with more than twice his experience.

'Tui is hands down one of the best I have encountered,' says Manuel, a veteran of 25 winters. (For snow sports athletes, time is not counted in years: it's the seasons that matter, back and forward between hemispheres.) 'Combine his natural ability with his outstanding work ethic and humble nature and we have the potential for a real success story on our hands.'

Raetihi lies about 90 kilometres north-east of Whanganui, on the Waimarino plains. It's population is about 60 per cent Māori, with Ngati Uenuku – Uenuku is the name of an ancestor, and also translates to rainbow – based here. A Rātana church stands guard on a hill as you enter the town, close to the marae, with a wide main street bordered by takeaways, an op-shop, and the historic buildings that survived the great fire of 1918. The forestry industry has always been a major source of employment – there were once more than 20 mills in the Ruapehu district.

Wikohika and wife Lauren both work full-time at the two on State Highway 49 near Tangiwai. He's a shift worker, with a roster that's a brutal mix of 12-hour day and overnight shifts. His weekends are wherever they fall. Lauren works more regular weekday hours. Tui and his older sister Sayge, 15, help with cooking dinner, keeping the house clean and looking after their younger siblings Lee, Putiputi, 5, and Ihaka, 4.

Tui is standing in the kitchen, his neck weighted down with medals. What's his signature meal? 'Spaghetti bolognaise!' he and Sayge say, dissolving into giggles.

'Lauren and I are a full on team and now that Tui and Sayge are teenagers they've got responsibilities and they help out heaps, they're part of our team,' Wikohika says.

'We're pretty lucky to live in place like this because everyone looks after each other's kids, everyone supports each other's kids. We love the people, love the community, all the outdoor stuff we get to do, all the hunting, fishing, we live a really fulfilled life, eh.'

Winter is the busiest time – every weekend there's rugby for the littlies in Taihape, netball in Whanganui, Tui up the mountain and often squash, too. 'It ends up being a bit of a mish, but a lot of people do it.'

Tui doesn't take it for granted. 'Not many people here get the opportunity to snowboard like me, I'm like really grateful that my Dad and Mum are making this possible,' he says. 'They are working a lot, and Dad usually helps me with getting sorted for the next morning, he's always helping me. Whenever he's off on the weekends he comes up to watch my competitions, and I'm happy when he gets to come up.'

It's not always easy. 'It can be hard with school, coming home from the mountain and it's night time, doing all your gears while trying to balance homework. But when I think of myself at the top level, that's what makes me strive hard. I want to work to get overseas, become better, become an athlete and try to get to my dream.'

The panoramic view from the Wikohika's deck takes in the primary school, where Jane Welburn was once Tui's teacher. The school is decile 2, reflecting a relatively material-poor community. Still, proud locals helped to fund the Raetihi Primary School Snow Academy, which raises thousands for young snowboarders – including Tui – to get gear and coaching three days a week during winter. The iwi also run the Kahui Maunga Academy, to fund local children to use the mountain. (An adult day pass at the commercially-operated field is now $125, more expensive than ever.)

In the evenings, Welburn would help Tui with his school work.

'He's just an exceptional child, he's incredibly modest and he's hardworking,' Welburn says. 'In terms of his snow sports he is obviously naturally talented but his family work hard to make the snowboarding happen.'

For a time, Welburn helped supervise the academy. Seeing the kids succeed in their own backyard made it worthwhile, she said.

'The mountain is on their doorstep, it's an inspiration for who they are and it's part of who they are. For them to have success in a sport on their mountain, is huge.

'For Tui, it's just massive whanaungatanga [kinship] for everyone to get behind him. He's always had that dream and it's really cool to get behind a child who has great integrity to get it.'

In photographs of Tui receiving his medals, he's often looking quite serious.

Welburn reckons she saw him crack a big smile once, though. It was after their team won the secondary school champs, and there was a big prizegiving at National Park School.

Tui was on the podium. Out of nowhere wandered his sister Putiputi, then a toddler, clambering up to gaze proudly at her brother.

He lifted her up. 'It was a beautiful moment.'

* Tui Wikohika is a finalist in the AMP National Scholarships on Thursday, and has launched a PledgeMe campaign to get to the 2020 Beijing Winter Olympics. Plus, public voting for the AMP People's Choice Scholarship wraps up this weekend, as finalists from nine regions vie for $5000 to help realise their dream. Details at amp.co.nz.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE KIWI

New Zealanders loved Kiwiana and it helped define us on the world stage – but it was a creation of the last century. Now, we are inviting our readers to start an optimistic conversation about the new set of Kiwi values that encapsulates our diverse, innovative 21st Century nation.

OUR VALUES: Over coming months, we will meet the people that are shaping that new culture, and discover the heartwarming stories of those who exemplify it for the next generation.

Tell us what you think are the values, old and new, that define New Zealand, in the AMP/Stuff Survey of Values, conducted by Yabble.

OUR ICONS: What are the symbols of New Zealand? Is there a new pavlova, a new kiwifruit for this century?

Over the coming month, we'll be asking you about the new Kiwiana. First up, jandals shaped the feet of a nation – but what's next?

❑ Allbirds, the hi-tech shoe with an environmental goal, made from fine merino wool;

❑ Nomads, the 1980s crepe-soled schoolyard phenomenon set for a 2020 reboot;

❑ Thick foot hair, as modelled by Peter Jackson's hobbits.

Tell us, in our fun Neighbourly Kiwiana poll.