I’ve never been a big fan of either playing or spectating traditional Kiwi sports. After a high school career that saw me achieve the incredible milestone of missing almost every single Physical Education session during my time at Tawa College, I discovered that individual rather than team sports were more my thing. Despite being a fellow alum of Jason Pine, who went on to become one of New Zealand’s most loved sports commentators, I can’t tell you much about those mainstream sports. A fatal flaw for someone who now lives in rural North Canterbury.
What I can talk about, though, are the slightly more obscure sports. The ones where you’re out there on your own, trying not to fall apart. Things like ultramarathon running, adventure racing and cycling. It’s the last of those that’s got me thinking today.
Scrolling through Facebook the other day, I stumbled across a post from Mel Allington about her husband, Chris. Now, Chris is one of those blokes you know from around the traps, smart, solid, unpretentious. Last week saw him flying halfway across the world to Roubaix, France, where he lined up at the Masters Track Cycling World Championships. According to Mel’s post, he didn’t just show up to make up the numbers; he came away with multiple world titles and, just for good measure, set a new world record.
Not bad for a guy who also runs a busy engineering consultancy back home. And this isn’t your average consultancy either. Chris and his team have been behind some properly important stuff, like the design of wire rope median barriers that you see here and overseas. He’s also been working on some high-tech monorail concept that, if all goes to plan, could be popping up in cities around the world before too long.
But what really gets me, and frankly makes it easy to really dislike the guy (I jest) is how someone manages to juggle a successful business, the inevitable late-night emails, the staff to look after, and still find the time and energy to train at a level that lets you compete with the best cyclists in the world. Because, let’s be honest, cycling isn’t a quick dabble kind of sport. You don’t just hop on the bike once a week and cruise to a world record. It’s hours and hours on the trainer, interval sessions that make your eyes water, and weekends spent chasing hills instead of sleep-ins.
And it’s not as though there’s any big pot of money at the end of it. There’s very little financial support for cyclists in New Zealand at the best of times, and basically none for the “old codgers” who race in the Masters age groups. These athletes are self-funded, squeezing in training between work and family, paying for their own gear, travel and copious amounts of carbohydrates. When you think about it, the return on investment doesn’t make much sense, unless, of course, you count satisfaction as a form of currency.
That’s what I find quietly inspiring about people like Chris. Other than his aforementioned and dutiful wife, there’s no entourage, no performance nutritionist on retainer, no corporate sponsor footing the bill. It’s just a person who loves something enough to give it everything they’ve got. I reckon most of us could use a bit of that spirit. We live in a world where it’s easy to talk ourselves out of doing hard things. Too busy. Too tired. Too expensive. Too whatever. Yet here’s this guy who just gets on with it, fitting it all in and somehow still showing up for work on Monday morning.
What also stands out is how understated the whole thing is. It’s the World Champs, yes, but it’s the world champs of a slightly obscure sport and the old fart’s category to boot. As such, there’s little scope for the self-promotion blitz or carefully curated press release, just Mel posting a few photos and a proud note about her husband’s latest effort.
I sometimes wonder if the engineering mindset helps. Cyclists are all about marginal gains, tiny tweaks to position, gearing, and tyre pressure. Engineers live in that world of detail, too. Maybe for Chris, the same part of his brain that figures out how to make roads safer or design a futuristic monorail also enjoys the challenge of shaving fractions of a second off a lap time.
There’s something very Kiwi about it all, too. That blend of ingenuity, stubbornness and modesty. We’re not a country that tends to make a big song and dance about our achievements, and maybe that’s a good thing. It keeps us grounded. It means people like Chris can quietly go about doing extraordinary things without needing a spotlight. I doubt the World Champs will get a mention, outside of this article, in any news outlet.
When I think back to my own rather inglorious days in high school PE, it makes me smile. Back then, I was the kid finding excuses to skip cross-country or hide out behind the gym. Team sports weren’t my thing, and I didn’t have the patience for training. Yet, decades later, I still find myself drawn to stories like Chris’s, ordinary people doing extraordinary things through persistence and love of the game.
Maybe that’s the real lesson here. You don’t need to be famous, or funded, or twenty-one and full of potential. You just need to pick something, stick at it, and do it for the right reasons.
