Bond vows to stick to dry land
It is full speed ahead for Hamish Bond, reinforcing his ambition to represent New Zealand at the 2020 Olympic Games on the bike, not the boat.
‘‘That’s certainly my long-term ambition and that’s something I’m fully focussed on,’’ said Bond, a month after finishing 39th in the time trial at the UCI Road World Championships.
The race was Bond’s first chance to see where he stood alongside the world’s best time trial riders, although a puncture about 10km in did leave question marks in the rowing legend’s assessment.
‘‘It was a blind corner. I noticed in my raceline, something, I still don’t know what it was, but a piece of debris. I just hit it and got an instant blowout on the front tyre. When you’re having to come to a complete stop from 60kmh on the fastest part of the course and then get back up to speed, it’s a tough one mentally,’’ he said.
‘‘You go through the planning of spare wheels, spare bike and punctures but you know in the back of your mind, although you’re making these preparations, if you have to use them it’s kind like curtains for a successful outcome.’’
If the puncture had not occurred, Bond said ‘‘maybe’’ he could have forced his way into the top-20 ‘‘all going well’’. Regardless, he was still satisfied to finish 2min 1.956sec behind third-place finisher Chris Froome.
‘‘If you told me going into it that I would have been two-ish minutes behind the podium on a hilly course, I would have thought maybe given 12 months experience that it’s not a bad starting point,’’ he said.
‘‘In my own harsh realities anything short of a win is a failure but you also have to be entirely realistic and I’m not ignorant as to the level that is required.
‘‘There’s big depth in cycling and all those top guys are incredibly fast and incredibly talented and have been riding their bikes more or less their whole lives, so it’s a huge mountain to climb.’’
Bond described his first 12 months in cycling as ‘‘stumbling around in the dark’’ as he took the unprecedented approach of specialising in time trial racing, basing himself in the UK simply to compete in as many club races as he could.
‘‘I had to figure out a means to an end and how it was going to work, what sort of training and racing was available to me, and I certainly have a better idea of that now. I feel as if the next 12 months will be a good opportunity to leverage of the previous 12 months as opposed to just setting a baseline, and that’s what we did to a degree.
‘‘It’s easy to look at the cons and say ‘I’m not racing on the WorldTour and I don’t have access to those races’, but if you flip it on its head, conversely I have the chance to focus fully on one goal and I can construct my training accordingly.’’
After taking time off after the world championships, his first real break from sport in two years, Bond has returned to training and will contest the 192km K2 race in Whitianga this weekend.
He will skip the Tour of Southland, but confirmed that he will line up at the elite road national championships in January, needing another podium finish in the time trial to stake his claim for Commonwealth Games selection.