Ellesse Andrews, born to ride
Her parents were accomplished on two wheels. Her great grandmother was no stranger to a bike, either. Ellesse Andrews has cycling in her blood. Mark Geenty reports.
Where were you on New Year’s Eve, 1999? As New Zealand launched into celebrations to usher in the 21st century, two of the country’s top cyclists Jon Andrews and Angela Mote were in Christchurch Women’s Hospital as the clock neared midnight.
Andrews, an Olympian in Barcelona in 1992, recalls with a laugh: ‘‘I was trying to encourage Angela to hold on another 15 minutes so Ellesse would be born in the new century . . . that would have meant she was in a younger age group for sport.
‘‘She was born at 11.45pm on the 31st. Ange is convinced that she wanted Ellesse to be born in the last century, and the midwife and I were quite keen on the new century, but Ange got her way, as she normally does.’’
As far as Ellesse Andrews’ parents are aware, she was the last baby born in New Zealand in the 20th century. Women’s Weekly did a story on their special arrival, and a follow-up when she turned five. That wasn’t the last time little Ellesse would hit the headlines, either.
On Thursday night in Christchurch, Andrews’ family gathered around and screamed at the television, as Ellesse hurtled around the Izu Velodrome in Tokyo for an Olympic silver medal in the women’s keirin.
Among them was her great grandmother, 94-year-old Rachel Mote, who used to cycle around Christchurch delivering mail during World War II.
‘‘Her sight is not so good but she can hear everything that’s going on, and all of us telling her, and she’s really onto it. What an experience to see your great granddaughter do that,’’ said Jon Andrews.
Ellesse wrung every ounce of strength and willpower out of herself in five punishing six-woman races to win silver, just 0.061sec off gold medallist Shanne Braspennincx of The Netherlands.
She was overcome with emotion when interviewed, and so were her family. ‘‘I talked to them straight away and we were all crying. They’re so proud.
‘‘My family was all in a room together watching me race. They’ve all been behind me the whole way, for them to be together and watch me and share this achievement is incredible,’’ she said from Tokyo yesterday.
Her parents say their daughter felt some pressure and expectation, and the emotion was a show of pride in her performance on the biggest stage.
‘‘She is super-talented, she can sing and play the guitar, so nothing she does really surprises us. All we wanted for her was to enjoy the experience and we didn’t want to see her crash when she’s on the other side of the world and there’s nothing we can do,’’ Jon Andrews said.
‘‘Staying upright and enjoying it was great, and whatever would be, would be. We had no expectation about medals, we just wanted her to have a good, positive experience.’’
To say Ellesse was born to be a cyclist would be understating it. Mother Angela was one of the country’s top mountainbikers (as was her brother Lawrence), and both were coached by Jon Andrews, New Zealand Olympian No 591 who finished seventh of 32 in the 1km time trial on the Barcelona track, and ninth in the sprint.
‘‘I coached both of them and Ange and I hit it off, and the rest is history,’’ said Andrews, who also won dual bronzes at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland.
His Barcelona odyssey served him
‘‘We never really forced her into cycling, we always made sure it was something she had fun doing.’’
Jon Andrews on daughter Ellesse
well in a future career as a cycling coach, including his daughter who shot up through the ranks and became a world junior champion in the team sprint in 2016, and individual pursuit in 2017.
‘‘My Olympic experience was a bit disappointing. I had good form but I had a terrible start. It was the first Olympics they used starting gates and we didn’t prepare well for what-if scenarios and my bike wasn’t straight in the gate.
‘‘I finished seventh but if it had been a better start . . . I may not have won a medal but who knows.
‘‘Those sort of lessons I’ve applied in my coaching and we prepare riders for things like that these days, how we deal with certain things. Ellesse has definitely benefited from those experiences.’’
Young Ellesse hopped on a bike with trainer wheels when she was three and never looked back, while her father started an IT business and they raised a family. Eddie, their youngest, is now 18.
Angela, then a music teacher at Mount Aspiring College in Wanaka, central Otago, would take Ellesse and her friends on mountainbike rides and when Jon joined in, their daughter’s ability and determination became clear at age 13. She enjoyed netball, athletics and swimming, but when the feet were planted on the pedals the magic would happen.
‘‘One day we were out for a ride and were just coming back to the school and Ellesse decided she was going to sprint the last bit back to school, so she put it in the biggest gear and just started to wind up this huge gear and race me to the finish.
‘‘I was riding beside her just laughing and thinking ‘this is really going to hurt’ because it’s really hard to ride in a big gear that fast, and any second now she’s going to collapse in a heap.
‘‘And she didn’t. She was so strong, even at that young age and with my history in cycling I recognised very quickly there was a huge potential talent there.’’
The track beckoned, as Ellesse’s father took a job as Cycling NZ’s performance hub coach in Cambridge, as the family moved north in 2015.
Ellesse got a scholarship to St Peter’s College in Cambridge, from where she won those junior world titles, while her parents later returned to Christchurch. As she switched from endurance back to sprints, and made an inevitable shift into the national set-up, the family connection always served her well.
‘‘We never really forced her into cycling, we always made sure it was something she had fun doing. She hardly trained as a kid, she was a natural athlete who enjoyed what she was doing and I was really careful to ensure she did enough training to allow her natural talent to come through without killing the love she had for it. Juggling that role as a parent and a coach was quite tricky, but luckily it worked out extremely well,’’ Andrews said.
At just 21, with next year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and the next Paris Olympics just three years away, as her parents say, the world’s her oyster. Those headlines, which started soon after she was born, won’t be disappearing any time soon.