Stuff Sports
23 June, 2021, 12:10 pm
Transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard might be dividing opinion but one rival competitor says she has nothing but respect for the Kiwi. ALEX PANTLING/GETTY IMAGES
Laurel Hubbard – the first openly transgender athlete selected for the Olympic Games – guards her privacy zealously, but has always insisted all she wants is to be herself.
Yet, the 43-year-old has been a polarising figure since she burst onto the world weightlifting stage in 2017 after transitioning to female.
The debate Hubbard has lived with for the last four years is likely to remain intense, after she was named in a five-strong New Zealand weightlifting team for next month’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Ministry of Health
Fraser Wright Maddigan pleaded guilty last year to breaching the level 4 lockdown restrictions by leaving his home and self-isolating in his car. (File photo)
A Christchurch man who breached the country’s lockdown restrictions has had his conviction quashed, after saying he was made to look “as bad as the mosque shooter”. Fraser Wright Maddigan, 45, pleaded guilty in the Invercargill District Court in April to breaching the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act after he decided to self-isolate in his car during the level 4 lockdown. He was fined $1000 and ordered to pay $130 court costs. Maddigan was charged after he left his home in Christchurch during the lockdown and travelled to Queenstown. He was stopped by police in the Queenstown area where police gave him an “educational” directive about the Covid-19 restrictions and told him to go home.