A cycling star on his way up
Campbell Stewart is a star on the rise.
Those who follow cycling closely already know this, but the 19-year-old pushed his name into minds of the mainstream New Zealand sports fans with his two silver medals at the Commonwealth Games.
He took second with a determined ride in the scratch race on Saturday, before backing that up with a gutsy effort in the points race on Sunday. That last effort saw him finish ahead of five-time points race world champion Australian Cameron Meyer.
Stewart is a product of the Palmerston North
Boys’ High School cycling factory that churned out Olympic bronze medallists
Simon van
Velthoven and Jesse Sergent under the tutelage of coach
Mike McRedmond.
It was McRedmond who
Stewart praised on Sunday after the points race for helping get him to where he is.
‘‘The effort and time he’s put into me over the years to get me into the elite programme was huge and from there it seems to be flourishing.’’
He only got into cycling because of his older sister, Kate a world junior track competitor in her own right.
‘‘Through intermediate Kate got into cycling. She did quite well when she was younger and seemed to really enjoy it, so I was like ‘oh well might as well come along with you’.’’
His talent was quickly there for all to see, winning multiple national titles at his first attempt.
‘‘I was probably about half the size I am now, at least. The first year I was tiny, the next year I went back and was a bit bigger and a bit stronger and every year it’s just been about slowly getting there.’’
The national age-group titles soon turned into world titles.
After the 2016 Junior World Track Cycling Championship in Switzerland he became New Zealand’s most successful rider at the event. He won gold in the prestigious omnium event and the team pursuit, along with a silver in the madison. Combined with the two golds he won in 2015, it lifted him ahead of previous Kiwi record holder Sam Webster, who won three golds.
That led to being a finalist in the emerging talent category at the Halberg Awards for two years in a row, losing to pole vaulter Eliza McCartney in 2016 before winning in 2017. Both times he took his sister to the awards ceremony.
He turned in a very good ride at the 2018 senior world champs, taking fifth place in the omnium.
The obvious goal now was the get to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
He said New Zealand’s track team were building strongly towards that, even if the world champs didn’t quite go according to plan.
‘‘We’ve got a lot of young talent coming through, plus we’ve still got the older guys well they’re not that old.
‘‘There’s just so much that we’ve got going and I think we’re slowly pulling it all together. We’ve got two years to do it, I think it’s going to be pretty exciting.’’
New Zealand ended their track cycling campaign on Sunday with 12 medals (two golds, six silver, four bronze).
❚ More Comm Games B5