Photo: Dianne Manson / RNZ Composite
The inquest into the death of Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore will resume in April following an abrupt halt to proceedings late last year.
The final days of the inquest into the suspected suicide of the 24-year-old sprint cyclist have been scheduled for 22 to 24 April.
The hearing before Coroner Louella Dunn, originally set down for three weeks, was due to wrap in early December.
However, the hearing was adjourned in the final week to allow a continuation of evidence in 2025.
RNZ is unable to report the reasons for the adjournment.
Podmore's August 2021 death was referred to the Hamilton Coroner's Court, but the remaining days of the hearing will be in Christchurch, where Podmore's family is from, to help ease some of the financial burden on her family.
The decision to adjourn the hearing late last year disappointed Podmore's mother, Nienke Middleton, who said she had already endured a three-year wait for answers.
"It's been really hard to get to the end of this three-week inquest, it's been so emotionally draining being here day after day listening to everything about Olivia that has come out," Middleton told RNZ at the time.
"Just to know now that it's been delayed until next year is really, quite frankly, disappointing. It's very hard going into Christmas still with no certainty going forward."
"There is no dispute"
At the outset of the hearing, Coroner Dunn indicated that she would make a finding that Podmore died by suicide.
"There is no dispute with that," Dunn said in her opening comments.
"The focus of this inquest will be the circumstances of Olivia's death and the mental health challenges she faced while living in Cambridge and training as an elite athlete under the care of Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand."
Over the opening three weeks of the inquest, the court heard how Podmore became a target of bullying and harassment from a coach and others in Cycling NZ's elite sprint programme after unwittingly exposing an inappropriate coach-athlete relationship in the lead-up to the 2016 Olympic Games.
That incident and the subsequent fallout was the central controversy examined in Mike Heron's 2018 investigation into Cycling NZ.
Heron's investigation found "distressing and sinister examples of bullying", "sub-optimal leadership", a lack of accountability, and reluctance to surface issues.
However, the inquest heard that Podmore continued to suffer adverse effects after the release of the report.
Dr Erik Monasterio is serving as an expert witness in the inquest into the death of Olivia Podmore. Photo: Pool / NZME - Mike Scott
Forensic psychiatrist Dr Erik Monasterio, serving as an expert witness for the inquiry, told the court that in his view officials failed to recognise the impact the inquiry had on the young athlete.
Monasterio said research studies had shown that people labelled whistleblowers generally did not do well, let alone a person as young as Podmore.
"You have to make sure that person is not doubly traumatised. This was a major event for a young person," he said.
"Olivia found herself in the centre of an inquiry which left her feeling incredibly vulnerable and it would seem that within the time that the Heron inquiry and the findings of that were made public she started to evidence distress."
Podmore needed to feel reassurance from Cycling NZ that she would be protected going forward as a basic duty of care, he said, particularly as her goal in life was to succeed in elite cycling at the world's pinnacle events.
"To complain against an agency upon which your destiny resides is very compromising. It's like biting the hand that feeds you."
Dr Monasterio's evidence will continue when the hearing recommences in April.
