Holly was born on the West Coast (Hokitika) in 1994 and has recently learnt of her Ngai Tahu descent and is now on a journey to learn more of her heritage and Te Reo. She is a twin to her brother Johnathon who has a focus on woodchopping. Holly began her love of athletics at age twelve, she always loved sport and picked up the shot put at the local club and without any training showed herself to be pretty good. This was noticed by local, Danny Sparks who took her under his wing and coached her.Holly attended her first World Paralympics when 16 in 2011. This marked her journey into the elite ranks of sport. She realised that to progress she needed to move to a larger centre and relocated to Dunedin and came under the coaching influence of Raylene Bates who improved her performance and javelin technique. Holly went from training once a week at the local park on the concrete cricket pitch as her run up to training every day twice a day.
Bruce Cowan who has known Holly for many years outlined her achievements through the years to the Gold medal at Tokyo in 2021 (finally beating her "arch rival" Holly Arnold of Wales.)
An unknown epilogue is that after winning Gold Holly went and thanked each of the officials who had been out in the rain throughout the competition. Unbeknown to Holly the officials put her forward for the Visa award which epitomised the spirit of the games, Holly won the award which came with a grant of $50,000 US ($75,000 NZ) which is able to be donated to a charity of the athletes choice being for Holly the Ronald McDonald House South Island.
To top off 2021 Holly was awarded the order of merit for services to sport in the Queens Birthday honours, very special and totally unexpected.
A further highlight from 2020/21 was being featured in a video game for para sport .
Holly indicated that she has committed to her sport for two more years with a target to defend her gold in Paris.
