Briana Stephenson

Born: October 23, 1999  |  Hometown: Waipukurau, Central Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand  |  Based: Auckland, NZ  |  Club: Hastings Athletic Club  |  Events: Heptathlon, 100m Hurdles, Long Jump  |  Sponsor: LSKD (discount code: BRILSKD)

A Long Road from the Bay

Briana Stephenson’s story is one of the more compelling in New Zealand athletics — a journey from a rural upbringing in the Hawke’s Bay to the start line of the world’s most prestigious combined events meeting, driven by resilience, reinvention, and an ever-deepening love for a sport that has tested her in every way imaginable.

Born on October 23, 1999, Stephenson grew up in Waipukurau, a small town in Central Hawke’s Bay situated about an hour south of Hastings on New Zealand’s North Island. It is the kind of regional community where sport is woven into daily life, and Stephenson took to it from the very beginning. She was seven years old when she first joined the Central Hawke’s Bay athletics club, showing an immediate natural talent for sprinting that would form the foundation of everything that came later. She is of NZ Māori descent — something she identifies with openly and with pride.

Her father, William, coached her throughout her high school years, instilling the discipline and technical awareness that allowed a country kid to punch well above her weight on the national stage. The family support network around her has been consistent and significant at every stage of her career.

Napier Girls’ High School: Star Athlete, Dual Representative

Stephenson boarded at Napier Girls’ High School — a fitting choice for an athlete from a rural town who needed to be closer to higher-level coaching and competition. At Napier Girls, she emerged as a dual-sport star. On the athletics track she showed all-round ability across sprinting and jumping events. On the netball court she was no less impressive, eventually making the New Zealand Secondary Schools netball team — an achievement that speaks to her athletic quality across disciplines.

But the dual life of a young athlete trying to do everything eventually caught up with her. In her final year of high school, while playing for one of the four netball teams she was part of at the time, she took a ball on the run and landed badly, tearing her anterior cruciate ligament. She had to be carried from the court. It was a devastating injury for any young athlete, but particularly cruel timing given she had also been selected for the Oceania Athletics Championships and had aspirations of earning an athletics scholarship to a university in the United States.

She was surrounded by friends in her school hostel during her rehabilitation, and their support helped carry her through. When she returned for her final year at Napier Girls, she had two goals: make the national secondary school netball team again, and reach a level on the track that would open those US college doors. Neither quite came to pass. “I was really disheartened when I missed the netball team and I intended to go to college in the US, but I just wasn’t quite at the level that I needed to be — so I moved to Auckland,” she has said. That move, though born from disappointment, would set the stage for everything that followed.

Auckland and the Long Jump Years

Stephenson moved to Auckland to study, eventually completing a Bachelor of Science in Physiology — a degree that would prove useful in ways she couldn’t fully anticipate. She joined the North Harbour Bay Cougars Athletics Club and began competing as a senior athlete in the jumps and sprints, coached by her father during the high school transition period before finding a new coach in the city.

Her progress through the national ranks was steady and impressive. By 2020, competing at the New Zealand National Athletics Track and Field Championships in Christchurch, she was firmly established as the country’s leading female long jumper. In difficult, gusty conditions, she produced a fourth-round leap of 6.08 metres — a personal best — to win the senior women’s national long jump title, becoming the champion after having collected four silvers and a bronze in previous age groups. She was also competitive on the track that weekend, running 11.89 seconds in a 100m heat and reaching the 200m final in a personal best 24.06 seconds before clocking a wind-assisted 23.94 in the final.

The following year, 2021, she won national long jump silver and 200m bronze. She had firmly established herself as one of New Zealand’s top all-round female sprinter-jumpers, carrying the hopes of the Hawke’s Bay region with her.

It was also during this period that her ACL specialist advised her to cease playing netball and concentrate fully on athletics, given the demands on her knees. She took the advice seriously, channelling all her competitive energy into the track.

The Pivot: Injury, Coach, and a New Direction

In January 2022, Stephenson suffered another significant knee setback — a meniscus tear that required surgery and a lengthy rehabilitation. It would have been understandable, after a second major knee procedure, to simply recover and continue down the long jump path. Instead, the injury became the catalyst for the most significant decision of her athletic life.

Her coach by this point was Matthew Wyatt — a former national long jumper himself, who had trained alongside Stephenson and understood both her physical abilities and her potential. While she was working through rehabilitation, Stephenson casually mentioned to Wyatt that she had always enjoyed the high jump. She also acknowledged something she had held onto since leaving school: “I actually intended to go into heptathlon when I left school but it didn’t align with what my coach at the time had planned for me.”

Wyatt seized on it. “Matt said, ‘As you are getting back from injury why don’t we spread the load across your body to give you a few more things to focus on. How would you feel about training for a heptathlon?'”

The logic was sound. Spreading training demands across seven disciplines — 100 metres hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 metres, long jump, javelin, and 800 metres — would reduce the repetitive loading on her recovering knee while broadening her athletic profile. What began as a pragmatic rehabilitation tool would turn into something far more profound.

Heptathlon Debut: Bronze and the Start of a Love Affair

Stephenson made her heptathlon debut at the 2023 New Zealand Combined Events Championships in Whanganui in January. Given that she was effectively a novice in five of the seven events, the expectations were modest. What she delivered was not: a total of 5127 points and a bronze medal, behind Christina Ryan and Maddie Wilson.

“I found a new love back to the sport — I just had to learn so much everyday with all the events,” she said. “I love that the heptathlon comes with so many challenges. It always feels like you can improve and that’s what keeps me motivated daily.”

With momentum building, she self-funded her first overseas athletics tour that European summer of 2023. Representing New Zealand as an exhibition athlete, she competed at the Swedish Senior Women’s Heptathlon Championships in Borås, finishing ninth with 5087 points against a field that included competitors from across Europe and Canada, setting personal bests in the 100m hurdles and 800m. She then competed in individual events in Graz (Austria) and Cologne and Rhede (Germany). Her final stop was the Northern Ireland Combined Events National Championships in Belfast — where she won all seven of her heptathlon disciplines and claimed the overall title. Her 100m hurdles time in Belfast of 14.53 seconds was a substantial personal best, and she ran 2:19.79 in the 800m — a 16-second improvement on where she had started the season. She came home genuinely transformed.

Season 2023–24: Rapid Ascent to National No. 1

The season that followed established Stephenson as New Zealand’s top heptathlete. In December 2023, she competed at the Queensland Combined Events Championships in Brisbane in temperatures reaching 36 degrees Celsius. She opened with a stunning 100m hurdles time of 13.74 seconds — slashing her recent personal best by a third of a second — and went on to score 5534 points to finish second overall behind Australia’s Camryn Newton-Smith. Critically, she won the 200m and 800m outright against Newton-Smith. That result elevated her to New Zealand number one and to eighth on the all-time New Zealand women’s heptathlon list.

At the 2024 New Zealand Combined Events Championships in Dunedin in February, she ran 13.93 seconds in the 100m hurdles and set a new high jump personal best of 1.77 metres — a remarkable height for someone who stands just 1.62 metres tall. She won silver at the national championships and moved to New Zealand number one in the 100m hurdles individually. She also won the event at the Wellington Capital Classic and the javelin at the Hamilton Porritt Classic, setting a new javelin personal best of 38.01 metres.

At the Oceania Athletics Championships in Suva, Fiji in May 2024, there was both triumph and adversity. She clattered her very first hurdle in the opening event — almost stopping dead — yet somehow regrouped to beat four competitors and continue. She set a heptathlon personal best in the shot put (10.77 metres), cleared 1.76 metres in the high jump, and broke the Oceania heptathlon 200m record with 24.26 seconds, competing with a heavily strapped inflamed knee. Australia’s eventual winner Newton-Smith sought her advice on 800m training. Stephenson finished fifth overall with 5415 points, closing the season as New Zealand number two and Oceania’s fifth best heptathlete.

2025: First National Heptathlon Title and a World Stage Debut

The 2025 season began with Stephenson making her debut at the prestigious Hypo-Meeting Götzis in Austria — the unofficial world championship of combined events, held in a small alpine town that comes alive each May. Competing alongside the likes of American Anna Hall, who produced a world equal second-best 7032 points on the day, Stephenson scored 5945 points for 17th place — just 40 points short of her personal best and a performance that placed her firmly among the rising heptathletes of the Southern Hemisphere. She ran a 100m hurdles time of 13.36 seconds in the combined hurdles lap, just shy of a potential national record set in 2009.

She continued her European tour with individual events in Portugal and the Arona Heptathlon in Spain, where she produced a long jump personal best of 6.34 metres — the finest jump of her career in that event.

Back in New Zealand for the national season, she produced an extraordinary fortnight in March. She was part of the Hawke’s Bay Poverty Bay team that won the national women’s 4x100m relay — the centre’s first such national title in more than 80 years. She then won her national 100m hurdles title with a personal best of 13.34 seconds — the fourth-fastest ever recorded by a New Zealand woman in that event. She also claimed third in the high jump and fourth in the long jump at the open championships.

At the New Zealand Combined Events Championships at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland, she went one better than her silver from the year before and won the national heptathlon title for the first time. She scored a personal best of 5985 points with four event personal bests across the competition, including a 1.78 metres high jump and a 23.81 200m. The total fell just short of the 6000 points she coveted, her 800m of 2:13.05 arriving barely a second off the required pace. “I had times I needed to have, and I knew what time I needed to run, and I was just under a second off that. But all and all very happy to have over 200 point PB,” she said. She left Auckland as both national champion and with the knowledge that the 6000-point barrier was right there waiting to be broken.

2026: The Barrier Falls, and Glasgow Beckons

Stephenson entered the 2026 season with an irritable Achilles tendon that put her participation in the Queensland Combined Events Championships in doubt. Five weeks before the event, she told Wyatt she would be content going to Brisbane simply to support her training squad rather than compete. He encouraged her to give it a shot. Together, they threw everything at her preparation, and she made the start line.

What unfolded on January 10–11, 2026, at the QSAC State Athletics Facility in Brisbane was the finest performance of her career. Stephenson scored 6098 points — shattering the 6000-point barrier for the first time, setting a new personal best, and winning the women’s heptathlon outright. As the first women’s heptathlon of the 2026 calendar year globally, it briefly made her the world number one in the discipline. The performance elevated her to fifth on the all-time New Zealand women’s heptathlon list, within clear sight of second place (6135 points) and Joanne Henry’s 34-year-old national record of 6278 points.

Her individual event marks at Queensland 2026: 100m hurdles 13.35 seconds, high jump 1.72 metres, shot put 12.70 metres (personal best), 200m 23.54 seconds (wind-assisted), long jump 6.11 metres, javelin 38.33 metres, 800m 2:14.69. “I knew going into the 800m what I had to run so I was really confident I could do it because it felt so close many times,” she said. She also acknowledged that her high jump, long jump and 800m were slightly below her bests, identifying approximately 150 additional points still in reserve.

The score of 6098 points met the Commonwealth Games A performance standard by 48 points. The Commonwealth Games are scheduled for Glasgow in July 2026, and Stephenson is squarely in contention for selection — a prospect she has described as “a super special milestone and a big deal for me and my family.”

At the national athletics championships in Henderson, Auckland in early March 2026, she defended both her long jump and 100m hurdles national titles, continuing to build momentum heading into what could be the most significant year of her career.

Her World Athletics rankings as of early 2026: number 43 in the world in the heptathlon, 236 in the 100m hurdles, 280 in the high jump, and 292 in the long jump.

The Team Behind the Athlete

Stephenson trains in Auckland under Matthew Wyatt, whose patience and understanding of combined events development have been the cornerstone of her transformation. Sports psychologist David Galbraith rounds out the support team, working with her on a philosophy that has become central to her approach: loving the daily process rather than waiting for the big moments to validate the work. It is a mindset shift that has allowed her to commit fully to a discipline that involves seven events, constant learning, and the kind of unglamorous daily grind that doesn’t often make headlines.

She balances multiple part-time jobs alongside training, including administration work for Xpand — an online sports equipment business founded by her partner, former professional tennis player Rob Reynolds. Stephenson navigates the financial realities of a self-funded athlete in a small national programme with the same matter-of-fact pragmatism she brings to her training.

Personal Bests Summary

• Heptathlon: 6098 points (January 11, 2026 — Queensland Combined Events Championships, Brisbane)
• 100m Hurdles: 13.34 seconds (March 22, 2025 — NZ National Championships, Christchurch)
• High Jump: 1.78 metres (March 2025 — NZ Combined Events Championships, Auckland)
• Long Jump: 6.34 metres (June 22, 2025 — Arona Heptathlon, Spain)
• 200 Metres: 23.54 seconds wind-assisted (January 10, 2026); 23.81 legal (March 2025)
• Shot Put: 12.70 metres (January 10, 2026 — Queensland Combined Events Championships)
• Javelin: 38.33 metres (January 11, 2026 — Queensland Combined Events Championships)
• 800 Metres: 2:13.05 (March 23, 2025 — NZ Combined Events Championships)

National Titles (selected)

• NZ Senior Women’s Long Jump — 2020
• NZ Senior Women’s 100m Hurdles — 2024, 2025, 2026 (defended)
• NZ Senior Women’s Heptathlon — 2025, 2026
• NZ Senior Women’s Long Jump — 2026
• Member, NZ Women’s 4x100m Relay National Champions (Hawke’s Bay Poverty Bay) — 2025

Social Media and Sponsorship

Briana Stephenson is active on Instagram at @brianastephenson, where she identifies herself as “New Zealand Heptathlon & 100mH Champ” and proudly notes her Māori heritage and her Hawke’s Bay-to-Auckland journey. She is a sponsored athlete of LSKD, an Australian-based performance apparel brand, with the discount code BRILSKD available for her followers.

Briana Stephenson is a New Zealand heptathlete and national 100m hurdles champion, born October 23, 1999, in Waipukurau, Central Hawke’s Bay. She trains in Auckland under coach Matthew Wyatt and competes for the Hastings Athletic Club under the Hawke’s Bay/Gisborne colours. She is the reigning New Zealand senior women’s heptathlon champion and is currently pursuing a place at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.