The Dunedin swimmer and businesswoman has been a major financial backer and supporter of Olympic swimmers Lewis Clareburt and Erika Fairweather, and kayaker Finn Butcher, through her business Fusion5.
Swimming has always been Tohill’s passion, having grown up competing under Dunedin coaching great Duncan Laing and representing Otago and New Zealand.
When Tohill, the founder and executive chairwoman of Fusion5, was asked if she would be interested in supporting Gareth Kean get to the London Olympics in 2012, she was happy to help.
"It was just recognising that it’s really hard for minor sports to get money and so I wanted to help on that front", Tohill said.
From there she met Clareburt as a teenager, and later Fairweather — through Tohill’s friend and Fairweather’s coach, Lars Humer — and began supporting them.
Her husband, Grant Henderson, began backing Butcher, who is their nephew, before Tohill starting supporting him through her business.
"We just see them as three cool kids that were young. Now they’re growing up . . . we’ve helped them on their journey and it’s given us a lot of pride", Tohill said.
Tohill, who estimated the financial support to be a "couple hundred grand" through the years, said the support ranged from technology to accommodation.
"It’s just rewarding to help people that are world class but not getting the funding they need, and parents that are just great everyday people that really appreciate the help.
"It’s really nice — it’s lovely. You really know you’re making a difference to the parents."
Clareburt and Fairweather became world champions earlier this year and watching them make five finals at the Paris Olympics was impressive.
"Erika was outstanding.
"Four finals, a cat’s whisker away from a medal which was really gutting for her personally, but . . . she’s up there."
Seeing her nephew Butcher win gold was incredible and she felt lucky to be involved with "really decent, good humans".
Tohill, who has also supported other athletes through the years, is still a pretty handy swimmer herself.
She swam the world’s fastest time — 3min 11sec (long course) and 3min 07sec (short course) — in the women’s masters 60-65 age group 200m breaststroke last year.
Despite swimming being a "truly international sport", swimming was still considered a minority sport in New Zealand.
The Olympics helped showcase different sports and had everyone talking about swimming, sport climbing, kayaking and trampolining in recent weeks.
But Tohill felt there was still more than could be done to lift the profile of "minority" sports all year round.
"It’s really up to the media, the broadcasters to broaden their thinking or package it up.
"Even rowing only turns up once every couple of years.
"Isn’t there more diversity of sport?
"I think particularly the younger generations . . . they’re moving away from the heavy-hitting sports.
"They want to see the rock climbing and the BMX."
