By Dale Budge
The Halberg Awards have reached an all-time fail with Pukekohe’s Formula 1 motor racing star Liam Lawson snubbed for even a nomination in the Sportsman of the Year honours.
The Halberg Awards have long created debate among the sporting fraternity with some questionable decisions over the years but surely a Kiwi kid that makes it to Formula 1 – one of world sport’s biggest showpieces – is worthy of being a finalist if not winning the category.
Instead, MotorSport New Zealand was advised not to put his name forward and nominated the likes of Hayden Paddon (NZ and European Rally champion), Brendon Hartley (World Endurance champion) and Counties Manukau’s Shane van Gisbergen (2022 Supercars champ, Bathurst winner and NASCAR race winner on debut).
All of those achievements are worthy nominees, but Lawson’s achievements trump them all.
Just what was said to MotorSport New Zealand and by whom needs to be examined but at the very least the Halberg system has their own Nominations Board, whose job is to work with NSOs to ensure a strong candidate does not slip through the cracks.
How anyone could think Lawson was not worthy of serious consideration really needs investigating.
Few sports can rival Formula 1’s global appeal and interest. It sits in the same realm as a world heavyweight boxing champion, Champions League football success or the 100m sprint at the Olympic Games.
It must also be pointed out that this is the same Halbergs organisation that awarded the All Whites a Supreme Halberg Award for essentially making it to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, where they recorded three successive draws. Apparently finishing outside the top 16 in football is a more worthy achievement than being just the 10th Kiwi and only the second in the past three decades to make it to motorsport’s elite category and then become the talk of the paddock with his performances.
Lawon’s five races on the Formula 1 grid, his domination of a much more experienced teammate and his impressive drives earned him widespread praise from the global motorsport fraternity but that obviously didn’t make it Down Under to little old New Zealand, where winning Kmart medal championships out-weighs the competitions everyone else around the world cares about.
I mean seriously, imagine a Kiwi sprinter making the Olympic 100m final but Athletics New Zealand being told not to worry about nominating that athlete because they only finished eighth.
It is down-right ludicrous and an embarrassment to the legendary Halberg name the awards represent.
The Halberg Foundation does great work, helping make sport accessible for everyone. It should be celebrated for making a genuine impact in the most rewarding of ways but year after year the shop window keeps destroying their credibility with silly decisions like this.
It is time for a major overhaul of these awards.
In the meantime, we should consider Lawson’s success as big a deal as any achieved by a Kiwi male in 2023.
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