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| Born | 12 March 1979 (age 45) Rotorua, New Zealand | ||||||||||||||
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Ben Sandford (born 12 March 1979 in Rotorua) is a New Zealand skeleton racer who has competed since 2002. He finished tenth in the men's skeleton event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. He finished 11th at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Sandford was born and raised in Rotorua, attending Rotorua Boys' High School. [2] He later attended the Victoria University of Wellington, where he graduated with bachelor's degrees in law and geography in 2002.
Sandford's best finish at the FIBT World Championships was 3rd in the men's skeleton event at Lake Placid in 2012. With his bronze medal, Ben became the second person from the Southern Hemisphere to medal at the FIBT World Championships, after his uncle Bruce Sandford who won gold in the same event in 1992 in Calgary.
Due to his natural sporting talent, Sandford's introduction to Skeleton came after he led a Squash team representing Victoria University to an International University Squash Tournament held in Austria in 2002. The skeleton track was close to the host centre and Ben thought he would "give it a go."
He has served as an athlete representative to the New Zealand Olympic Committee since 2008 and the World Anti-Doping Agency since 2012. [3] At the 2014 Congress of the Federation Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobagganing Sandford was elected as the federation's vice president for Legal Affairs, becoming the first person from Oceania to be elected to the FIBT's executive committee. [4]
Sandford was the New Zealand Labour Party's candidate for Rotorua at the 2017 general election. [5] Sandford was also ranked 57 on Labour's party list for the election. [6] Sanford came second place to National Party Member of Parliament Todd McClay, who won by a margin of 10,887 votes. [7]
In July 2022, Sandford announced he would contest the 2022 Rotorua mayoral election. [8] He came second to Tania Tapsell, losing by a margin of almost 3,300 votes. [9]
On 24 February 2023, it was announced that Sandford would contest Rotorua for Labour again in the 2023 general election. [10] Sandford came second place to the incumbent McClay, who won by a margin of 8,923 votes. [11]
Rotorua is a city in the Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand's North Island. It is sited on the southern shores of Lake Rotorua, from which it takes its name. It is the seat of the Rotorua Lakes District, a territorial authority encompassing Rotorua and several other nearby towns. It has an estimated resident population of 58,800, making it the country's 13th largest urban area, and the Bay of Plenty's second-largest urban area behind Tauranga.
Sir Peter Wilfred Tapsell was Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1993 to 1996. He was notable for being the first Māori Speaker, and for being the first Speaker since Bill Barnard in 1943 to hold office while not a member of the governing party.
Todd Michael McClay is a New Zealand politician and former ambassador. He is the Member of Parliament for Rotorua. He was previously an ambassador for the Cook Islands and Niue to the European Union.
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Noelle Pikus-Pace is an American retired skeleton racer who began her career in 2001. She won five medals at the FIBT World Championships, competed in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and won the silver medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Rotorua Lakes District or Rotorua District is a territorial authority district in the North Island of New Zealand. It has one urban area of significant size, the city of Rotorua. The district is governed by Rotorua Lakes Council, which is headquartered in Rotorua and is headed by a mayor. The district falls within two regional council areas, with the majority of the area and Rotorua city in the Bay of Plenty Region and the rest in the Waikato region. Tania Tapsell has been the mayor of Rotorua since the 2022 local elections.
Rotorua Boys' High School (RBHS) is a state school educating boys from Year 9 to Year 13. It is situated just outside the Rotorua CBD at the intersection of Old Taupo Road and Pukuatua Street in Rotorua, New Zealand. The school is governed by an elected School Board, of which the Principal is ex officio a member under guidelines laid down by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. With Māori enrolment exceeding 75% of the school’s intake, the largest per capita in New Zealand, RBHS has been a longstanding recipient of funding from its Ngāti Whakaue endowment that assisted the construction of the school’s 104-bed hostel, and the purchase of a computer laboratory. RBHS is noted for its performance in sport, with 4 Olympians among its notable alumni, and for having won the Prime Minister of New Zealand Supreme Award for Excellence in Education and the Excellence in Leading Award, making it the top school in the country for 2019. Its retiring principal, Chris Grinter, was the longest serving in the school's history, and in 2022, he received a New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education and Māori.
Tāmati Gerald Coffey is a New Zealand broadcaster, politician, and former Member of Parliament.
Bruce Sandford is a New Zealand skeleton racer who has competed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He won a gold medal in the men's skeleton event at the 1992 FIBT World Championships in Calgary.
Kathryn "Katie" Uhlaender is an American skeleton racer who has competed since 2003. She has won six medals at the FIBT World Championships with two gold, one silver, and three bronze.
The Königssee bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track is a venue in Germany for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, located in Schönau am Königssee, Bavaria, near Königssee and the border with Austria. Completed 56 years ago in 1968, it is the first permanent, artificially refrigerated bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track in the world. In July 2021, the track was severely damaged by the floods that affected the European continent, and is currently under reconstruction.
The men's skeleton event at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, took place at the Whistler Sliding Centre on 18–19 February. Canada's Duff Gibson was the defending Olympic champion. Gibson retired after the 2006 Olympics. Switzerland's Gregor Stähli, the defending Olympic bronze medalist was the defending world champion, but did not compete due to a thigh injury sustained during the World Cup event in Lake Placid, New York, on 20 November 2009. The test event held at the venue was won by Jon Montgomery of Canada. The last World Cup event prior to the 2010 Games took place in Igls, Austria, on 23 January 2010 and was won by Latvia's Martins Dukurs who also won the overall World Cup title.
Kyle Tress is an American Olympic skeleton racer who competed from 2002 until 2017. He placed 25th in the 2011 FIBT World Championships in Konigssee, Germany. His best World Cup finish was 5th in the men's event at St. Moritz, Switzerland on January 11, 2013, and Lake Placid, New York, on November 5, 2012. On January 18, 2014, Tress was named to the 2014 Olympic team. His last World Cup race was in February 2017, at Igls, where he finished in 19th place; the following season, Tress began coaching the Japanese national team.
The Mayor of Rotorua officiates over the Rotorua Lakes district of New Zealand, which is administered by the Rotorua Lakes Council (RLC), whose seat is in Rotorua. An elected borough council first came together in February 1923; prior to that, the area had effectively been under government control. Rotorua has had 15 mayors as of 2022, and the current mayor is Tania Tapsell.
Elizabeth Anne Yarnold, OBE is a British former skeleton racer who joined the Great Britain national squad in 2010. With consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2014 and 2018, she is the most successful British Winter Olympian and the most successful Olympic skeleton athlete of all time from any nation. She won the 2013–14 Skeleton World Cup, followed by a gold in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Yarnold was selected to be one of the two women skeleton drivers representing Team GB at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and went on to become the first person to defend an Olympic gold in skeleton and the first British athlete to defend a Winter Olympic title. Yarnold set the track record for women's skeleton at the Olympic venue in the final heat of the race with a time of 51.46 seconds, beating Jacqueline Lölling's pre-Olympic record by nearly 1.3 seconds and her own first-heat record by 0.2 second. Yarnold was also the flag bearer for Great Britain at the Pyeongchang opening ceremony.
Fletcher Hoporona Tabuteau is a New Zealand politician and former Member of Parliament. He was elected as a list MP for the New Zealand First party from 2014 to 2020 and was deputy leader of the party from 2018 to 2020.
Tania Tapsell is a New Zealand politician. She has served on the Rotorua Lakes District Council since 2013 and was elected mayor of Rotorua at the 2022 local elections. She is the first woman of Māori descent to hold the role.
The New Zealand Free Speech Union (FSU) is an organisation that advocates for freedom of speech. It was formed as the Free Speech Coalition in 2018 and relaunched as the Free Speech Union in 2021.
The 2022 Tauranga by-election for the New Zealand House of Representatives was held on 18 June 2022 in the Tauranga electorate, after the sitting member, former National Party leader Simon Bridges, resigned from parliament. The National Party's Sam Uffindell won the by-election in a landslide result, ahead of the Labour Party's Jan Tinetti.
The 2022 Rotorua mayoral election took place on 8 October 2022 to determine the Mayor of Rotorua. Incumbent mayor Steve Chadwick did not run for re-election.
