Former olympian starts a new career with Barfoot & Thompson

PHOTO: Barfoot & Thompson. FILE

Former olympian Beatrice Faumuinā has started a new career with Barfoot & Thompson in our senior management team as our High Performance Academy Manager. It is with immense excitement that we welcome her to the team.

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Widely recognised as a New Zealand athlete, icon and business superstar, Beatrice is well-versed in high performance environments and is a superb fit to lead the academy. Her commitment to family, sport, communities and strategic partnerships is the embodiment of the Barfoot & Thompson values, and her leadership will further embed these within all facets of the company.

PHOTO: Beatrice Faumuinā. Barfoot & Thompson

THE FACTS (Wikipedia)

Faumuina was a gold medallist at the 1997 World Championships in Athletics. She has represented New Zealand in four Summer Olympics. After winning the discus event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester she was featured on a stamp from Samoa. She is currently New Zealand’s Trade Commissioner and Consul General, New York.^[1]

At the 2004 Summer Olympics she placed 7th in the discus with a throw of 64.45 metres. Early in her career, she was coached by Les Mills, discus gold medallist at the 1966 Commonwealth Games.

In the 2005 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Faumuina was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to athletics.^[2] On 16 October 2005, she was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

In 2006, she appeared in the New Zealand version of the television series Dancing with the Stars where she was placed second.^[3] Since 2006 she has been a presenter on the Television New Zealand Pacific Islands current events programme Tagata Pasifika. She also attended Lynfield College.^[4]

In 2007, Beatrice decided to focus on athletics and based herself in Australia for the majority of the year before competing in Osaka, Japan. She returned to good form after a disappointing injury plagued her 2006 season, placing her 4th at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. She threw 62.2 metres at a meet in Christchurch, beating rival Dani Samuels from Australia. This followed a winning throw of 62.08 throw at a meet in Canberra.

She placed 28th in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing with a throw of 57.18m, failing to qualify for the final. Her comments to media following her elimination were widely criticized after it was perceived that she was satisfied with what many viewed as a sub-standard performance.^[5]^[6]

Faumuina finished seventh in the 2009 Reebok Grand Prix in New York, with a throw of 56.73 metres.^[7] She was expected to compete in the Prefontaine Classic meet in Oregon, in order to throw the qualifying standard for the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin. However, she did not attend the meeting^[8] and her coach stated that she had decided to focus on her upcoming Bachelor of Business Studies exams instead.^[9]

Faumuina has retired from discus throwing.^[10]