Olympic gold medallist Valerie Adams began 2016 with a wedding, won silver in the shotput at the Olympic Games in Rio and has ended the year being made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honours List.
Adams told Radio New Zealand she hoped she would inspire more women.
“It’s amazing, not only to be a woman, but also to be a Pacific Island woman,” she told the national broadcaster.
The Olympian was made a Dame for services to athletics.
Her title is the female equivalent of a knighthood.
Adams, 32, was named New Zealand’s first Sports Ambassador to the Pacific in October this year.
She recently returned from Samoa where she had been promoting the country’s Nobesity programme to young people.
As Kaniva News reported last year, Adams has also been honoured in Tonga.
In January 2015 the title Tongitupe-ʻO e-Funga Taua was bestowed on her by Lord Vaea in her mother’s home village of Houma.
The appointment is the highest honour given to commoners in Tongan culture.
Adams won the World Youth Championships in 2001 with a throw of 16.81 metres when she was just 16.
She then became World Junior Champion the following year with a throw of 17.73 metres.
She was the first woman to win four consecutive individual titles at the World Track and Field Championships, achieving gold in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013.
She has won two Olympic gold medals, three Commonwealth Games gold medals and three World Indoor Championship golds.
Adams is one of only nine athletes to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event.
She has also won a bronze and four silver medals in international competition.
She holds the New Zealand, Oceanian, Commonwealth and equal World record for a personal best throw of 21.24 metres, which she set in August 2011.
Adams has won 14 New Zealand national women’s shot put titles.
She has received the Halberg Supreme Award, New Zealand’s highest annual sporting honour three times and was named Halberg Sportswoman of the Year for seven consecutive years.
Adams was named on Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2009 New Year’s Honour List.
She was born in Rotorua to a Tongan mother, Liklika Ngauamo, who came from Houma on Tongatapu. She has 18 brothers and sisters.
Her brother Steven Adams earns a multi-million dollar salary with the American basketball team Oklahoma City Thunder.
The main points
- Olympic gold medallist Valerie Adams began 2016 with a wedding, won silver in the shotput at the Olympic Games in Rio and has ended the year being made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honours List.
- Adams told Radio New Zealand she hoped she would inspire more women.
- “It’s amazing, not only to be a woman, but also to be a Pacific Island woman,” she told the national broadcaster.
- The Olympian was made a Dame for services to athletics.
For more information
Shot put hero Valerie Adams named Dame Companion of NZ Order of Merit in New Year’s Honours List
