The 1992 Olympic Team Pursuit track cycling race in Barcelona was set up as an epic battle between the current World Champions of Germany and the emerging talent of Australia. In the end Germany would reign supreme improving by over 6 seconds from their Qualifying ride into the Final and snatching the gold from the Aussies and taking the Olympic record with it.
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Winning a silver medal at my first Olympics in Barcelona should’ve been an accomplishment worth celebrating but at the time it was very difficult to comprehend how close we had come to winning gold. There weren’t many Aus smiles on the podium that day!
On reflection and more than 30 years on, losing that race was probably the best thing for me at that time to motivate me in the years to come. It made the gold medal in my home Country all the more sweeter and once I had achieved this, deep down I knew my cycling career would end because it was my biggest and only goal that I had been chasing for close to 20 years.
I never gave any recognition that we had broken a World Record and Olympic Record along the way and all because we stumbled on the last hurdle. I know I wasn’t the only one that felt this way. Yet our final ride was our fastest of the four rounds we competed in over 2 days and there was nothing else to give. The Germans beat us by 1.4 seconds!
Giving your all is the most you can ever ask of yourself and the journey to get there with my teammates was far bigger than the end result. So when I look back now a silver medal doesn’t remind me of being disappointed, it makes me smile because it reminds me of the good times you have to just be part of the journey.
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