Rebecca Ewert

Rebecca Ewert, born in Auckland in 1955, was one of the very few athletes chosen to represent New Zealand in two disciplines at the same Commonwealth Games. It happened to Les Mills in 1966, when he was selected as a weightlifter and a shot putter. And it happened to Ewert in 1970, when she was picked as a diver and a swimmer.

She eventually competed in two Commonwealth Games, Edinburgh in 1970, when she was only 15, and Christchurch in 1974, and in 1976 became the first diver chosen to represent New Zealand at an Olympics.

Her father, Doug, excelled at cricket, hockey, rugby and swimming and was a national diving champion in the 1930s.

Ewert was clearly a budding sports star when she was attending Rotorua Intermediate and Rotorua Girls’ High. At school she played rep hockey and netball, competed in athletics at provincial level and competed nationally trampolining.

She also took dance lessons and in hindsight felt ballet was perfect for giving her balance, flexibility and strength – all essentials for divers.

Rebecca and her older sister Linda learned to swim at the Rotorua Blue Baths, where she received swimming and diving guidance from coach Doug Freeman.

By nine, Rebecca was representing Bay of Plenty in diving and swimming at the national age group champs. She specialised in freestyle and butterfly. She was better at short distances, she said, noting she didn’t do a lot of specific swim training.

She told Jill Nicholas in an excellent profile for In Profile – Rotorua’s Homegrown Stories that all the trampolining she did was extremely helpful. “It was used primarily as a tool to learn new dives. We tended to do that in the winter when the pools were shut. I got into the national trampoline champs when I was about 13 or 14, but after that focused on swimming and diving.”

Ewert recalled helping to save a little boy’s life when she was nine. She and a friend, Amanda, saw what they thought was a doll face down in the Government Gardens duck pond. “It turned out to be a boy of about 18 months. I’d come from church and had my good clothes on. I was worried what my mother would think if I got them wet and dirty, but I went in and pulled him out. “I told Amanda to run and get her dad. He was a doctor and resuscitated the boy.”

While a fifth former, she was selected for diving and swimming for Edinburgh in 1970.

At the national champs in Dunedin the selectors were clearly interested in the precocious talent. “They didn’t know a lot about diving but asked me to do a few more dives.” At the same meet, Ewert’s fourth in the 100m freestyle qualified her for the Games.

“When I got to Edinburgh, the heats were on at the same time as the diving. “I was disappointed but it was not to be.”

At Edinburgh, Ewert was seventh in the springboard diving with 337.74 points, a long way behind Canadian Beverly Boys, the gold medallist, who recorded 432.87 points.

Following Edinburgh, Ewert concentrated solely on diving, with some coaching from Edinburgh teammate Cyril Buscke at the Napier pool during school holidays.

After her first year of studying law at Otago University, she made the first of several trips to the US for coaching at Dick Smith’s Swim Gym. There were further visits before the world championships in Colombia in 1975 and the 1976 Olympics.

At the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games, again in the springboard event, she was 8th with 379.29 points.

In Colombia, she was never in the running for a top placing but still qualified for the following year’s Montreal Olympics. There she was 21st of 27 in the springboard with 352.62 points and did not qualify for the final.

The 1976 Olympics were her last competitive event – she was about to graduate with her law degree, which she followed with a Masters at Victoria University.

Shortly after, she was passing Ohakea air base when she made an instant decision to inquire about becoming an RNZAF pilot - she’d gained a student pilot’s licence while at school.

“I was told women couldn’t be pilots in the air force.” Undeterred, she tried the army, which had a legal division. “Initially they said ‘no’ because they hadn’t had any female lawyers in the military.” But perseverance paid off and eventually she was accepted.

She entered Defence Headquarters in Wellington as a legal officer in 1978, in uniform and at the rank of lieutenant.

Three years on she was seconded to the Singapore-based New Zealand Force South East Asia. There she was legal adviser to 2000, from commanders to servicemen, and officiated at courts martial. In Singapore, she met her future husband when both were stationed at the same officers’ mess. He was an RNZAF helicopter pilot. They were to have two children.

Ewert’s final posting was to Land Force Command, Auckland. When she hung up her uniform in 1995, she held the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Afterwards she was Unitec New Zealand’s Registrar for nine years and then she sat on the Bench as a community magistrate for four years. After that she took a long-term role as Auckland University’s General Counsel.

She stayed involved in sport, as a member, then chair, of the board of Diving New Zealand and a board member of Aquatics New Zealand, and as a selector for Snow Sports New Zealand.