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Speaker 1: End of an era. This is the Queenstown's iconic Winter Games.

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Speaker 1: After fifteen years, it's all over why untenable economic factors.

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Speaker 1: Nick Cavnet is the snow Sports New Zealand CEO. He's

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Speaker 1: with me this morning. Nick, Good morning, Good morning Ryan.

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Speaker 1: This is devastating news for not just the region but

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Speaker 1: also for the athletes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's like you've just said, at the end

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Speaker 2: of an era and news no one really wanted. But

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Speaker 2: I suppose it's just signals that sport's not immune to

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Speaker 2: the tough times we're going through. And I don't have

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Speaker 2: the specifics, but anyone out there at the moment in

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Speaker 2: Sportland trying to raise commercial partnerships and sponsorships is finally

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Speaker 2: incredibly challenging.

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Speaker 1: Do you think it'll come back A look, I hope.

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Speaker 2: So you know, they are looking at coming back in

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Speaker 2: some way, shape or form in the future, and well,

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Speaker 2: you know, we'll certainly be interested in seeing what that

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Speaker 2: looks like. But you know, you know, the way that

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Speaker 2: the World Cups are set up at the moment currently

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Speaker 2: are just untenable.

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Speaker 1: Because of the funding and the way that it works.

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Speaker 2: Yep. Look, it's progression. When they started at so Fort

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Speaker 2: sometime ago, you know, judges sat in a little booth

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Speaker 2: at the bottom of the of the course and just

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Speaker 2: looked at it. Now that's all done by live feeds

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Speaker 2: and television, live broadcast, so the costs have just gone

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Speaker 2: up and up and up. Prize money's gone up as well,

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Speaker 2: which has been benchmark. This is you know, this is

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Speaker 2: some of the reasons why that there they found it

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Speaker 2: not possible to run this year.

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Speaker 1: The Aspen X Games are on this weekend, so a

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Speaker 1: lot of the athletes presumably are going to be competing

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Speaker 1: there are those types of events. Why how are they

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Speaker 1: able to keep going?

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Speaker 2: That's a good question, right, you are right. X Espen

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Speaker 2: X Game starts today with Zoe at two forty five

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Speaker 2: and it's our biggest crew that we've ever had at

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Speaker 2: X Games of successletes, So we're excited about that. Like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: X Games has been around for a long time as well,

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Speaker 2: US based, So yeah, our athletes are looking forward to

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Speaker 2: competing there and we're looking forward to watch them as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I suppose that while they're all over there together,

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Speaker 1: they'll be getting the sad news about Queenstown.

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Speaker 2: They will do. We have kept it pretty low key

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Speaker 2: obviously in competition mode, we'll trying to allow them to

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Speaker 2: focus on their performances at the moment rather than talking

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Speaker 2: about what's coming up and domestic winter. But yeah, all

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Speaker 2: of our team forty odd people are overseas at the

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Speaker 2: moment in qualification mode for the Olympics and Paralympics, and

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Speaker 2: it's going pretty well so far.

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Speaker 1: Nick, Thank you very much for that, Nick Kevin, a

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Speaker 1: Snowsport New Zealand CEO. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays,

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