{"id":646939,"date":"2026-10-31T14:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/646939\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T14:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T14:00:10","slug":"world-rugby-womens-player-of-the-year-2026-new-zealands-kaipo-olsen-baker-wins-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/646939\/","title":{"rendered":"World Rugby Women&#8217;s Player of the Year 2026: New Zealand&#8217;s Kaipo Olsen-Baker wins award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">New Zealand number eight Kaipo Olsen-Baker has been named World Rugby Women&#8217;s Player of the Year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 24-year-old, a powerful ball carrier, beat Canada&#8217;s DaLeaka Menin and England duo Megan Jones and Zoe Harrison to the award.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Olsen-Baker was a standout performer for a resurgent Black Ferns side, who suffered only one defeat this year under new head coach Whitney Hansen &#8211; a 26-19 loss against England in September. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Canada lock Sophie de Goede won the award last year, with England full-back Ellie Kildunne picking it up in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">New Zealand flanker Elinor-Plum King won World Rugby&#8217;s Breakthrough Player of the Year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 22-year-old scored three Test tries in her debut Black Ferns season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Kaipo&#8217;s consistency and influence have been outstanding throughout 2026, while Elinor-Plum has made a remarkable impression in her first year on the international stage,&#8221; World Rugby chair Brett Robinson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;To see both players recognised in front of their home supporters in Christchurch makes the occasion even more special.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand number eight Kaipo Olsen-Baker has been named World Rugby Women&#8217;s Player of the Year. The 24-year-old,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-646939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}