The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
‘Excited’ Stewart gets back on track
Gold medallist Mark Stewart recaptures fun and joy of cycling in New Zealand
Commonwealth Games gold medallist Mark Stewart is rediscovering his love of cycling during the coronavirus lockdown, writes Eric Nicolson.
The Dundee athlete, who was a points race champion in the Gold Coast two years ago, experienced a frustrating World Championships in February, when he finished 12th.
Stewart wasn’t holding out much hope of being selected for Tokyo 2020 after the Berlin disappointment but the postponement of the Games for 12 months has opened up new Olympic possibilities.
And New Zealand, where he is staying with his pro cyclist girlfriend, is proving to be the perfect place to push the reset button on his career.
“I’m enjoying my cycling out here more than I have done in ages,” Stewart told Courier Sport. “I’m really excited just to go out and train.
“I’m cycling purely to enjoy cycling. It’s fun again. I feel like a kid going out and smashing a climb at the back of Dundee. I’ve been finding that feeling again. I leave when I leave and I get back when I get back.
“I’m excited to see what the future holds for me.”
Even for an athlete who has won gold sitting on his saddle there is a lot to be said for landing on your feet.
Mark Stewart’s Olympic dream may have had to go on hold but the Dundee cyclist isn’t finding it hard to put an optimistic spin on the postponement of the Tokyo Games and all that goes with it.
The 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games points race champion travelled back Down Under straight after February’s track World Championships in Berlin.
The motive was a straightforward one – spending time with his Kiwi girlfriend Emma Cumming, also a professional cyclist.
Stewart wouldn’t try to claim any global pandemic foresight, but if somebody had set him the task of devising a plan about how best to navigate a coronavirus lockdown, he couldn’t have come up with a better one.
“We’re in a town called Cambridge, 90 minutes south of Auckland,” he said. “You could almost call it a sporting town, even though there are only about 20,000 people living in it.
“As well as the cyclists, the country’s triathlon squad are based here and a couple of other sports as well.
“Emma is on the New Zealand team and they’ve been really accommodating to me. Before the lockdown, they gave me access to their gym and I was training with the men on their team.
“Emma lives with three other cyclists so when the team’s facilities shut down, the coaches shifted their gym to the athletes. Because there are four of them here, they’ve basically put the gym in our garage.
“It’s certainly worked out well from a training point of view. This has probably turned out to be the perfect place to be at. I’ll be here for a while because there won’t be racing any time soon, that’s for sure.”
Stewart is well-placed to compare and contrast the Covid-19 reactions of the governments of his home country and the one he is a guest in.
“It’s basically the same sort of lockdown as back in the UK,” he explained.
“The biggest difference was New Zealand shut their borders after 100 cases and went into lockdown after 200. It will probably be a couple of months until they’re on top of it but it looks like Britain will be a lot longer.
“They have taken it very seriously here. Lockdown really does mean lockdown. Luckily, I’m still allowed to ride my bike. That, and to go to a supermarket. If I’m being honest those are pretty much the only two things I do with my day anyway.
“So from a personal point of view I’ve not been affected too much at all.”
Stewart’s cycling career hasn’t been one of silver spokes and golden gears. He came into the Team GB set-up relatively late in elite sporting terms and, in part due to the life lessons he absorbed before getting paid to be an athlete, has a healthy perspective on what an Olympic delay means in the context of the current coronavirus chaos.
But he also freely admits that, after a disappointing World Championships when he finished 12th in the points’ race, he will have a better chance of being selected to compete in Tokyo 2021 than he would have for Tokyo 2020.
“There are several aspects to it,” said the 24-year-old.
“There are people who are losing their lives and other people who are losing a lot of money because of the coronavirus. In the grand scheme of things, the Olympics are pretty far down the list of what’s important in life.
“I get why some athletes are devastated, particularly if you had plans to retire after the Games or to start a family. But there are a lot of people with much more important worries.
“For our squad’s point of view, getting another 12 months is the best thing that could have happened.
“We were a bit behind in the World Championships and I wasn’t sure whether five months would have been enough to make that up.
“What we needed was a physical gain and five months isn’t long enough for that. Potentially 12 months makes a big difference. So it might work in our favour.”
And purely for him?
“To go to Tokyo this summer I would have needed a really good Worlds, which unfortunately didn’t happen,” he pointed out.
Refocusing and re-energising were required for Stewart and now the pause button has been pressed on his competitive season that process is proving to be extremely therapeutic.
“I’m enjoying my cycling out here more than I have done in ages,” he said. “I’m really excited just to go out and train.
“I’m cycling purely to enjoy cycling. It’s fun again. I feel like a kid going out and smashing a climb at the back of Dundee. I’ve been finding that feeling again. I leave when I leave and I get back when I get back. Some days it might be an hour but most it’s four or five.
“I grew up watching my dad (Stan) do Ironman races. He’s a scaffolder and myself and my two brothers would go on the building site with him in the school holidays. Scaffolding in Dundee in the winter was such a harsh reality.
“So for me, I know that even if it’s six hours on a bike in the freezing cold that’s still not a long or hard working day compared to normal life.
“My usual route when I was younger was from Dundee to Balbeggie, Scone, Perth and Bridge of Earn and then back along the Tay on the Fife side. It was basically a tour of the River Tay.
“New Zealand does remind me of home. It’s gorgeous – but Scotland has an edge.
“New Zealand is all green whereas you get the purples and browns in Scotland as well. Scotland has a ruggedness to it that can’t be beaten. It’s just a bit warmer here!”
Stewart knows it is not a case of one size fits all for cyclists, or indeed any
Olympic hopefuls, now their target has been put back a year.
“Within the GB squad feelings are mixed about what to do now,” he said.
“Someone like Ed Clancy wanted to have a break. He had in his head there would be five more months of training, compete and then he’s done with it all. He’s 35 and has three Olympic golds.
“Then there’s someone like me who is really keen to train now. I’m eager to see if I can make more physiological gains. It’s not often you get the opportunity to have several months just to train.
“I had glimpses of what was working well in a training block over the winter.
“I’m excited to keep that ball rolling. I’m not one of those athletes who just bursts on to the scene. I’m the type who has had to grind it every year. I can’t afford too much time off because I need consistent, hard work to improve.
“But what I’ve learned in the last six years is you can have the best plan but hardly anything ends up being in your control.”
Still, plan you must.
For Stewart that will hopefully mean the Olympics in 2021, swiftly followed by a chance of more Commonwealth Games gold the year after.
At that point swapping the velodrome for the open road becomes a realistic possibility.
He said: “The beauty of cycling is everything is recordable and with the way my numbers are going in training I’m excited to give the road a crack. I think I can give it a good shot. I stepped away from it to pursue the track and it worked out well with the Commonwealth Games gold.
“It would be too soon to look at the road for the Tokyo Olympics as I’d be competing with guys like Chris Froome but maybe the Paris Games. I’ve got a clear picture of where I’m heading.”
That clear picture applies to the next two years on the track. He added: “I really love team pursuit but sometimes you can’t get away from your genetics. The thing with team pursuit is I’m not naturally a powerful enough athlete for that event.
“I’ve tried and I’ve improved but there are guys like Ed who are just made for it. I’m made for bunch races and road races. In the Olympics that would mean the madison and the omnium and at the Commonwealth Games the points race and scratch race.
“I’m excited to see what the future holds for me.”