Nicky Cooney

Cooney was born in Rotorua in 1966, the daughter of Val and Denis Cooney. Her mother was a physical education teacher and her father owned a septic-tank company. She took up diving when she was eleven years old. She began her secondary education at Rotorua Girls' High School, but later became a boarder at Waikato Diocesan School in Hamilton to be able to train daily at the deep-water pool at the University of Waikato.^[1]

In 1982, Cooney was selected for the diving squad as part the New Zealand schools swimming team that competed at the Pacific Schools Games in Brisbane.^[2]

At the 1983 New Zealand national diving championships, Cooney finished second in both the women's open one-metre springboard and women's open tower events,^[3][4] and won the Hansells Trophy for the highest-scoring individual dive by an age-group competitor.^[5] She was subsequently named in the 15-strong New Zealand team to compete at the world age-group championships held in Hamilton later that year,^[6] where she placed eighth in the 15–17 girls' one-metre springboard competition.^[7]

In 1984, Cooney reached the qualification standard for the 1984 Olympic Games, but was not selected for the New Zealand team.^[1] However, she began competing on the North American diving circuit during the Northern Hemisphere summer.^[1] In early 1985, she was part of the four-person New Zealand team that competed in Australia at the Australia Day diving competition and at the Australia Games.^[8] In March that year, Cooney won the women's three-metre and tower titles at the New Zealand diving championships, and was runner-up in the women's one-metre springboard event.^[9][10]

In early 1986, Cooney was a member of the New Zealand team at the Southern Cross international diving series in Australia.^[11] At the New Zealand championships in March that year, she was injured while competing in the women's platform event and had to withdraw from the event.^[12] However, she recovered to win the three-metre springboard title.^[13] Later that year, Cooney competed in the three-metre springboard at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, finishing fifth with a score of 469.62, a New Zealand record score for the event, surpassing the record previously held by Ann Fargher.^[14][15]

In 1987, Cooney retained her national three-metre springboard title,^[16] and the following year she was again overlooked for selection to represent New Zealand at the 1988 Summer Olympics.^[1] In 1989, she competed at the FINA Diving World Cup in Indianapolis.^[17]

At the 1990 Commonwealth Games held in Auckland, Cooney competed in the women's one-metre springboard, in which she finished in eighth place, and the three-metre springboard event where she won the bronze medal.^[18] Also in 1990, Cooney was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal.^[19]

In 1990, Cooney joined the New Zealand Police,^[1] and undertook a range of duties, including frontline and road policing.^[20] After taking a six-year break from the police, she returned and became head of the road policing team in Rotorua, before serving in various managerial roles at district headquarters.^[1][20] In 2023, Cooney was appointed Eastern Bay of Plenty area commander.^[20]