The hidden cost of high performance: new research questions ‘win-at-all-costs’ sport culture

Sunday, 12 July 2026

Brainwaves is a new weekly Post and Sunday Star-Times feature showcasing the best, brightest and most innovative minds in New Zealand. Each week we will bring you four pieces of research from each of the country’s top universities - the articles will cover a broad range of disciplines and topics as both a window into what Kiwis are working on, and a showcase of how we can mould the future through inventive thinking.

Are the systems which were designed to support New Zealand’s high-performance athletes actually harming them instead? Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Master of Commerce graduate Wayne Aquila measured the cost of success.

In high-performance sport, success is measured purely by results, and winning is the only result that counts.

But the cost of those results can be the athletes themselves, and the measurement of that has received far less attention.

In the past few years, though, these issues have been foregrounded, and difficult questions about the true cost of elite sporting success in New Zealand have been raised by complaints across a variety of sports.

Influenced by growing global concern about toxic cultures in elite sport, where athletes have increasingly spoken out about bullying, abuse, and poor treatment, I’ve researched how power operates in high-performance environments and how it shapes athlete wellbeing, using the case of Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore as a critical lens.

I found the issues raised in her case and others are not isolated incidents but reflect deeper structural problems. The systems designed to support athletes may instead be contributing to harming them and I believe meaningful change is needed.

My findings were stark: while organisations emphasise care and support, wellbeing is often secondary to performance outcomes. In fact, the very meaning of wellbeing was defined through a performance lens.

There’s a disconnect between what organisations say they do to care for their athletes and the athlete’s lived experience.

I discovered athlete wellbeing was essentially transformed into a commodity and positioned as something to be optimised to achieve performance outcomes such as funding success, medals and national pride.

There is a win-at-all-costs culture embedded in funding models and performance expectations. What the athletes pay in wellbeing to achieve those wins is not tallied with the same focus.

It means there is a fundamental tension within the system, where organisations promote wellbeing while simultaneously prioritising outcomes that may undermine it.

My study also outlined how control is exercised within the high-performance system.

Wellbeing is defined, measured and monitored by organisations, often through standardised tools and frameworks. While these appear supportive on the surface, they can also function as mechanisms of oversight to manage athletes as a productive asset, limiting athlete autonomy and reinforcing top-down decision-making.

I also found official narratives tended to downplay or even omit critical events and findings that exposed systemic failings. In doing so, organisations can present an image of progress without fully engaging with the underlying causes of harm.

It results in elite athletes facing high levels of stress, burnout and mental health challenges, which can be amplified by performance pressure, public scrutiny and organisational expectations.

These issues aren’t confined to a single sport. Repeated inquiries across multiple sports have highlighted similar issues of culture, power imbalance and inadequate support.

Women’s rugby, water polo, gymnastics, canoeing, kayaking, cycling—this is affecting a whole lot of sports right across the board.

I believe the consequences go beyond sport. High-performance systems in New Zealand are publicly funded and closely tied to national identity, making the wellbeing of athletes a matter of broader public concern.

Real change is needed, but that will require more than incremental reform.

We need to rethink how success is defined and how power is distributed in our systems. That may require rethinking our funding models, and it should include giving our athletes a stronger voice in decision-making.

Wellbeing frameworks need to reflect genuine care, rather than performance optimisation.

The challenge I see is: can elite sport deliver national success without compromising the health, dignity and humanity of the athletes we love to cheer for?

This research was supervised by Professor Todd Bridgman.