“Oh, I’m going to win that one day.”

As a recruit, Angie Keen set her sights on taking out the top spot at the Police Association and Police Sport Awards. Just over five years later, even she is surprised to have reached her goal so quickly.

Born in Wellington and raised on a farm in Ohariu Valley, Angie describes herself as a not necessarily “sporty” child. It wasn’t until her early 20s that she decided to focus on becoming a triathlete.

Over the past five years, Angie has competed in triathlons at a national and international level, representing New Zealand at multiple world championship events. Her success includes three top 10 finishes and five podium finishes at events in the United States, Canada, Denmark and Spain.

But it was 2023, Angie says, that proved to be her most successful year yet – both on the national and international stage – with three world champion titles within
four months.

“It was definitely a good year for me,” she reflects matter of factly, and winning the NZPA Sportsperson of the Year “was a nice way” to round things off.

Her whirlwind year kicked off in February when she took out the women’s National Aquabike Championships in Kinloch, near Taupō, promptly followed by the Sprint Distance Triathlon national championships in New Plymouth in March. That same month she collected four golds at the Australasian Police and Emergency Services Games, held in Rotorua, in the off-road 10km run, cross country mountain bike, aquathlon and triathlon.

On the international stage in May, Angie won the cross-triathlon world championship title at the 2023 World Triathlon Multisport Championships in Ibiza, Spain – her fourth medal in world champs, having secured silver in both the 25-29 age group long-distance triathlon and the aquathlon in 2017, and bronze in the 30-34 age group aquathlon in 2018.

Back on home soil and after moving from New Plymouth to Rotorua in June, Angie was back in competition mode in August and became national champion in the sprint distance duathlon at the Auckland Sprint Duathlon Championships.

In September, she won the standard distance aqua bike and super sprint triathlon world championship titles for her age group at the 2023 World Triathlon Age-Group Championships in Pontevedra, Spain. She came first in her class in both races, with “the overall fastest bike time” in the aquabike event.

Coming off the back of such a successful year, you’d be forgiven for thinking the next thing on the 36-year-old constable’s agenda is a well-earned rest.

Angie says that is the furthest thing from her mind.

“It’s just what I do,” she says, and she credits her fitness and discipline with handling the demands of her job with the Impairment Prevention Team. She says it is good for her to have her sporting life outside of work.

But there is a new challenge on the horizon for Angie and her partner, dog handler Constable Brad Smith, who will be welcoming their first child this year.

The plan is to take a few years off competitive sport for now, but she plans to return when she tips into the next age group. She says she’ll give herself four years to get back on top.

If the past is anything to go by, Angie can certainly be taken at her word.