Queenstown cycling prodigy Oliver Watson-Palmer has returned home from the UCI Track Cycling Junior World Championships in Tel Aviv with a burnished bronze medal slung around his neck.
As part of a quartet, the 18-year-old earned the medal after a remarkable fight-back in the men’s team pursuit event, which saw New Zealand and Denmark neck-and-neck for third place right down to the final stretch.
‘‘It was a super-close race, Denmark led 95% of the race and we came back in about the last 250 metres, the last lap, and just nudged ahead and beat them,’’ Oliver says.
And although there was a hair’s breadth between the two teams — NZ claiming the bronze by a mere 0.4 seconds, for Oliver, the triumph demonstrated the perseverance and dedication of the team.
‘‘It was pretty awesome [winning bronze] with all my good mates.
‘‘We definitely went into the competition hoping to medal just because we’d put in so much work, so I think if we didn’t walk away with something, we’d be quite disappointed, so I’m really glad we did.’’
However, it was no easy ride to the podium, with oppressive 35-degree heat and bike crashes throwing up roadblocks in other races.
As well as the team pursuit, Oliver was also due to compete in the omnium, a multiple race event, but a bout of heatstroke saw him pulled from the line-up.
Then, during his warm-up round for the Madison event, his front wheel was taken out by a member of another team.
‘‘It was a real shame … he got a few grazes, it wasn’t too bad but he couldn’t get back on the bike,’’ Oliver’s dad Daryl, who travelled
to Tel Aviv in support, says.
Oliver says competing amidst such adversities has been a good thing for his drive.
‘‘I went away from the competition still kind of hungry for more, still wanting to do better because I didn’t really get to show at the individual events.
‘‘I think it’s definitely a confidence boost but it’s also showing me that I definitely have a lot of things that I need to work on.’’
While the junior world champs marked Oliver’s debut on the international track cycling stage, the experience showed him NZ’s ‘‘actually pretty competitive’’.
‘‘Although it’s world champs, everyone’s kind of there for the same reason, everyone’s on a reasonably similar level.
‘‘I think it’s quite promising going forward, just knowing where I was [ranking],’’ he says.
ot confining himself to a single cycling discipline, Oliver also completed a seven-week European road racing campaign in Belgium prior to the world champs.
‘‘It started off not so well — I crashed in my first race, then my next race, and then my third race, and then I found myself and kept improving.’’
Now home in Queenstown, he’ll soon be back in the saddle for the Tour of Southland, competing in both the junior and adult categories, next month.
‘‘I’ll be training up for next year, where I’ll be moving into the kind of elite side of cycling, so moving out of the age group, and I’ll be racing against all of the elite professional cyclists.
‘‘I’m not entirely sure yet what next year looks like, but it’ll involve probably quite a lot more racing than even this year.’’
