Alongside his seven adventure racing world championships and a host of other awards, including winner of Eco Challenge – the world’s toughest race, a NZ title for cross-country mountain bike racing and two podium placings in the Speights Coast-to-Coast, Nathan Fa’avae says that being awarded a New Year Honour “is quite special”. Nathan was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to adventure racing, outdoor education and the Pacific community.
“You don’t set out to achieve something like this, but it’s quite nice to be acknowledged for the things I’ve done. I feel very honoured,” he says.
While he acknowledged that there are “tons of people that do great work in the community that go unnoticed”, he says that he was delighted that it recognised his efforts beyond sport, helping the community.
Nathan has represented New Zealand in Adventure Racing since 2001. He captains the New Zealand Adventure Racing Team and has led them to win seven world championships, including the most recent in 2022 hosted in Paraguay.
He pioneered women’s adventure racing, establishing the Spring Challenge Women’s Adventure Race in 2007 to encourage participation of women in adventure sport.
“We established women’s adventure racing purely to provide opportunities for women to be more active in the outdoors. We decided to just give it a go, and it’s turned out to be very successful.”
In the last 16 years, more than 25,000 women have participated in the Spring Challenge which is hosted at different locations throughout New Zealand each year, allowing female athletes to explore New Zealand’s environments and to support local businesses.
Nathan is also Patron of Whenua-Iti Outdoors in Tasman, encouraging youth into outdoor activities.
"I first went there as a teenager in 1990 as a student and that was a very transformational period in my life.”
Those early experiences led to a career working in outdoor education and adventure tourism, including a stint working for Whenua-Iti. Around 10 years ago he was invited to be their Patron, which he says gives him opportunities to advocate for them, raise awareness,and support their fundraising.
And despite creating quite a legacy of his own, one of his latest challenges is continuing the legacy that his parents, Filemoni (Phil) and Jan Fa’avae built, supporting Pasifika youth in Nelson through the Fa’avae Foundation. In 2021 Nathan and his siblings Braden and Zariana, partnered with the Top of the South Community Foundation to create a fund to support Pasifika youth to access outdoor education programmes.
“Our vision is to remove financial and other barriers for whatever their goals are,” he says. “Outdoor education opened my eyes to what else was out there, so we’re hoping to provide life-changing experiences and inspire others.”
Nathan also acknowledged his wife Jodie, who he says has been on a shared pathway with him since high school. “In many ways the award is as much hers as mine,” he says.
By Judene Edgar
