Get in quickly to secure your ticket to the hottest event of the year – the TDF Gala Dinner. Always a fun night, this years Gala Dinner is shaping up to be better than ever. Get your group together now to ensure 12 August 2021 is a night to remember.

Young tennis star Holly Stewart’s first year at a US college was cut short by the global pandemic, but she’s making the most of her time back home in NZ, giving back to young women with less opportunity.

The hoop at the end of the netball court isn’t the only goal Vika Koloto’s shooting for.

The 18-year-old Aucklander of Tongan heritage, who is part of the New Zealand 2021 Netball World Youth Cup squad with hopes of one day playing for the Silver Ferns, is also studying to be a primary school teacher.

Some of Canterbury’s champion rugby players are giving back to the game early – coaching teams on top of their work and playing commitments, so young girls have the chance to play.

One distressing knee injury after another would be enough to crush most young athletes, but not Ainsleyana Puleiata. The rising netball and sevens star tells Suzanne McFadden how she twice overcame the mental and physical torment – and now the black dress beckons.

Leah is pursuing a US college scholarship in basketball, and a business degree that’s focused on the sea. The Junior Tall Fern is happy in her new life at Otero Junior College in Colorado, USA – playing basketball and studying business, her two great passions.

Renee Holmes has already represented New Zealand in three sports. After a “disheartening” incident in her soccer career, she switched to rugby – and now aims to make that four.

Talented teenage shooter Khiarna Williams is committed to travelling 18 hours a week – after school – to realise her netball dreams.

Rivals on the rugby field, sisters Nina and Caterina Poletti will race together in the Coast to Coast – and in both, their late dad will be alongside them.

The late Tania Dalton’s husband Duane and daughter Tayla talk of carrying on her legacy through the Tania Dalton Foundation alongside scholarship recipient Maama Vaipulu.

Whangārei’s Tara Turner, 16, is one of 12 young female athletes chosen in this year’s cohort of the Tania Dalton Foundation scholarship programme. Taylor was scheduled to be at the presentation of balls to Whangārei Intermediate, where she was a former student.

Samalulu Clifton is no stranger to paddling her way through rough water, but the aspiring surf lifesaver and kayaker has had to brave a completely different storm in the past two months – with her parents stranded 8500km away during lockdown.

Touch Black Tara Lee Turner-Beazley would have been battling it out for the inaugural trans-Tasman Touch Series last week but instead finds herself on the frontline as an essential worker.

Last night 12 young women were named in the second-year intake of the Tania Dalton Foundation’s scholarship programme.