McIlroy cements her legend
A synthetic running track at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a pontoon on the banks of the Strathclyde Loch and road at the Currumbin Beachfront.
These three startlines symbolise a sporting career which will reach legendary status at the latter when the women’s cycling road race gets underway at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.
That’s because Kate McIlroy will be there, taking those final deep breaths before embarking on her third Commonwealth Games in a remarkable third different sport.
In Melbourne in 2006 she finished fifth in the 3000 metre steeplechase on the track, before coming 10th in the triathlon in Glasgow in 2014.
The 36-year-old’s selection for the road race was confirmed on Saturday when Cycling New Zealand announced its 33-strong team for the Games, but in Wellington yesterday McIlroy said the enormity of the achievement had not quite sunk in.
‘‘It’s a little bit overwhelming. I go back to when I went to the Commonwealth Games in 2006 for athletics, I never would have dreamt my career would go the way it has. It’s incredible to go to the Games for three different sports.’’
McIlroy’s journey to this point was a story of perserverance through adversity.
She shot to prominence after winning the World Mountain Running title in Wellington in 2005, which led to her being named Sportswoman of the Year at the Halberg Awards.
That led to the success on the track, but an achilles injury prevented her from competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, despite qualifying, and further injuries ultimately led to her move into triathlon.
She did get to the Olympics in that sport - a 12th-placed finish in London in 2012 - but injury also ended her triathlon career in 2016. She crashed while on a mountain bike ride in Wellington, tearing her hamstring off the bone.
‘‘That was a really sudden and unfortunate way to end my tri career,’’ she said.
It meant finding a fulltime job, in the marketing department at Xero, but her competitive streak and insatiable appetite for training was still there.
‘‘I kept riding my bike to basically keep me sane.
‘‘I realised that I missed competing, so I started entering a few races and got the opportunity to race for this team in Australia and sort of springboarded from there.’’
That team was Specialized Women’s Racing. While they are not a professional team, they help provide bikes and gear, as well as assisting with flights to and from events, entry fees and accommodation.
It enabled McIlroy to ride in some big events over the last 12 months of so. She finished third in the road race at the national championships in 2017, which she followed up with a fifth in the event this January, but it was her results in Australia afterwards which really caught the eye.
She was eighth overall in the four-stage Tour Down Under, a UCI 2.1 event which attracted some of the biggest names in the sport, including Dutch rider Annemiek van Vluten, who is the No 1 ranked rider in the world and finished sixth, just 18 seconds ahead of McIlroy.
She also finished eighth in the one-day Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and 11th overall in the two-stage Herald Sun Tour.
That form helped solidify her place in the Commonwealth Games team.
‘‘I was unsure whether I was going to make the team or not. I wasn’t 100 per cent confident, so I was pretty overwhelmed and a bit shocked when I first found out.
‘‘I knew I had to perform well in January. Those top-10 performances in those races in January over in Aussie, which were full of world class riders, meant I knew I was in good shape, but there are a lot of girls riding well in New Zealand at the moment, so it was whether or not I’d done enough to make the team.’’
With selection confirmed, McIlroy could now focus all her attention on the 112.2-kilometre road race.
She would wait to hear what the tactical approach from the CNZ team would be before setting any expectations, but was looking forward to the team aspect of things, where she will race in black alongside dual national champion Georgia Williams, Sharlotte Lucas, Linda Villumsen, Bryony Botha and Rushlee Buchanan.