More and more Kiwi athletes are becoming aware of their impact on climate change, and want to be part of the solution, Angela Walker reports.
Sport was initially one of Covid-19’s most visible casualties.
The 2020 Olympics were postponed amid cancellation of countless other events. Athletes soldiered on during lockdowns, training alone in makeshift home gyms.
But despite the upheaval, sport soon found ways to adapt. Virtual events pitted competitors against each other via Zoom, special team quarantine arrangements were made, and sporting contests resumed, albeit in empty stadiums. Sport has been kept alive during the pandemic thanks to new and innovative solutions.
Imagine then if sport could apply the same inventiveness to another global crisis – climate change.
It’s something Olympic pole vaulter Eliza McCartney has been thinking about for awhile. “It’s been really interesting watching the world’s response to Covid,” she says. “Because if we can make such rapid change to an immediate threat, then surely we can apply that to a threat that is immediate but where the consequences aren’t as apparent right now.”
McCartney has lent her voice to a number of sustainability campaigns in recent years. She is the public face of organisations like Trees That Count – a charity that champions native tree planting, and Re:Mobile, a phone recycling scheme.
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