Former inline speed skating world champion Nicole Begg hopes the sport, with a little help, will regenerate in the South.
The diminutive 22-year-old caused a media maelstrom when she posed nude in 2007 to help raise the profile of her sport.
Now, the Timaru skater is using that profile to help start the sport in Dunedin. She was in Dunedin over the weekend to compete at an event and told the Otago Daily Times an attempt to revive the sport was under way.
Roller skating had been in the doldrums for the past 20 years but former competitive skater Brett McCormack was leading an effort to get it running in the city again, she said.
"They've got a club started up again and they have been travelling to Timaru to train with us," Begg explained.
"So we decided, since they are supporting us, we'd come down and support the club and try to get something happening down here, because then the whole of the South Island gets stronger."
Begg moved home to Timaru from Auckland in 2004 and helped re-established a skating club in the city.
From humble beginnings of three skaters the club has expanded to have a membership of more than 200 skaters.
"A lot of those are speed skaters, so that's another 40 or so speed skaters in the country, which is huge," she said.
"It's still hard for minor sports in New Zealand to get things, but a few years ago I did the nude pictures and people still ask me about that now. That really did bring a lot of coverage to the sport and suddenly people knew it existed and soon they were interested in it."
Begg has had a mixed year in terms of results.
She missed out on a medal at the World Championships for the first time in six years but won "two of the biggest marathon events" in the world.
Begg competes on the professional circuit in Europe and Asia for six months of the year and races under a sponsor's name, rather than under the New Zealand banner.
She makes a modest living but it is a lifestyle she enjoys immensely.
"I definitely don't do it for the money. When I started, I had to sleep in cars and on hotel floors of other people's rooms. I really had to scrimp to get by. But then you make a name for yourself and you start getting sponsored. But I do it because I love it and if I really wanted to make money I would have been down here at university."
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