Olympian weightlifter Laurel Hubbard. (Screenshot via CBS Sports)
Olympic weightlifter Laurel Hubbard was named Sportswoman of the Year at New Zealand’s prestigious 113-year-old University of Otago and OUSA Blues and Golds Awards event this last week.
The 43-year-old Queenstown, South Island, native was the first openly transgender woman to compete in an Olympics when she competed in the women’s 87kg weightlifting event at the 2021 Tokyo Games.
In a statement to the local newspaper, the Otago Daily Times, Hubbard said she was “grateful for all of the support and kindness received from the teaching staff and students at Otago University.”
“It is not possible for athletes to complete at the Olympic level without the encouragement and aroha [a Māori word meaning “love”] of friends, family and supporters … This award belongs to everyone who has been part of my Olympic journey,” she told the paper.
Hubbard’s participation at the Tokyo Games provoked controversy as she prepared to compete as the world’s first out transgender woman Olympian. The director of medicine and science for the International Olympic Committee, Dr. Richard Budgett, directly addressed those who had attacked and mocked the New Zealander and claimed she shouldn’t be competing with cisgender women, saying “everyone agrees that trans women are women.”
“To put it in a nutshell,” he said, “the IOC had a scientific consensus back in 2015. There are no IOC rules or regulations around transgender participation. That depends on each international federation. So Laurel Hubbard is a woman, is competing under the rules of her federation and we have to pay tribute to her courage and tenacity in actually competing and qualifying for the Games.”
Otago University Students’ Association president Michaela Waite-Harvey told the Otago Daily Times that the Blues awards aim to highlight Otago students excelling in their chosen sport.
“We could think of no-one more worthy of sportswoman of the year than Laurel Hubbard who represented Otago and New Zealand incredibly well at this year’s Tokyo Olympics.”
