Riding for Israel Start-Up Nation, Patrick Bevin (front) driving the peloton up the hill in the 2021 Tour of the Basque Country in Spain. Photo / Israel Start-Up Nation
Riding for Israel Start-Up Nation, Patrick Bevin (front) driving the peloton up the hill in the 2021 Tour of the Basque Country in Spain. Photo / Israel Start-Up Nation
Taupō cyclist Patrick Bevin, 30, knows two seconds is a long time when you are racing the fastest cyclists in the world in time trials.
Part of the 19-strong New Zealand cycling team, Patrick is training in Andorra, for the time trial and the road race events at the Tokyo Olympics.
"It was so exciting to get selected. It's the pinnacle of sport. It's been a crazy couple of years building up to this point."
Patrick says he has been preparing for the Olympics since 2018, and is 100 per cent focused on the men's time trial. He says the latest best indication of where he ranks in the world was when he placed fourth in the 2019 UCI Road World Championships, just 2.16 seconds off the bronze medal winner Filippo Ganna of Italy.
"It was New Zealand's best-ever result for a male cyclist," says his Taupō-based mother, Jenny Bevin.
Patrick says it's hard to know where the Olympic field of time trialists stands.
"I'm aiming for a medal and I definitely want my best performance. But it's anyone's game. It's the athlete against the clock and it's a long, hard individual event."
He says the time trial course in Tokyo will be tough, "it's a unique course and I will have to deal with the heat".
Patrick Bevin at the 2018 UCI Road World Championships Innsbruck. His team placed 3rd in the men's individual time trial. Photo / Israel Start-Up Nation
The course is a 44.2km loop around Mt Fuji with a vertical gain of 846m. It's 24C in Tokyo compared to a cool 13C in Andorra, a tiny principality in the Pyrenees mountains where Patrick has been based for the past two years.
He lives there with his partner of two years, Abbie Smith from Te Awamutu, who is studying psychology.
He says living in Andorra gives him the chance to train at a high altitude, and also to save tax. The town where he lives also has facilities for high-performance cyclists and athletes from other codes: triathletes, mountain runners, mountain bikers and motocross riders.
Cycling New Zealand director Martin Barras says Patrick is accomplished in road racing.
"And he's a world-class time trialist."
Patrick says as far as the road race event goes, he is there in a supporting role for fellow cyclist George Bennett (who rose to number 26 in the world this year) who Martin describes as New Zealand's best-performing road rider in two decades.
"It's a weird quirk of the Olympics that I have to start the road race event if I want to compete in the time trial.
"In an ideal world, I wouldn't start another race three days before the time trial.
"I'll be there for the first half of the road race for George and then that will be my day. I have zero ambitions for the road race."
He has competed in the Tour de France three times and a career highlight was winning the 2018 Tour de France team time trial in the third stage with BMC Racing Team.
"Patrick became the third New Zealander to stand on the podium, and first New Zealander to tow his team across the finish line," said Jenny.
He chose to go to the Olympics this year and not compete in the Tour de France, because the two events are too close together.
Patrick Bevin in the time trial at the UCI road world championship in Italy 2020. Photo / Cycling New Zealand.
Jenny says Patrick raced 21 stages of his first Tour de France, in 2017, with a broken foot after a "horrible crash" in the first stage. He continued on to the end, carrying his injury over 3500km."
Other career highlights include BMC Racing Team placing third in the UCI Road World Championships in 2018, and winning the second stage of the Santos Tour Down Under in 2018. This is his sixth year riding in the UCI World Tour. A year ago he joined Israel Start-Up Nation, after starting the UCI World Tour with Cannondale-Garmin.
Patrick grew up on a farm near Kinloch, is a triplet with two sisters Kate and Emma, and is one of eight siblings. He attended Marotiri School, went to Taupō Intermediate where he was in the class for students with academic ability, and high school years were at Taupō-nui-a-Tia College.
Jenny says he excelled at many sports while he was at school.
"But the day came when Paddy had to choose one sport, and he chose road cycling. His ambition was to ride in the great tours in Europe and to represent New Zealand at the Olympics," said Jenny.
Patrick says he bounced around a lot of sports when he was at Taupō-nui-a-Tia College. He was in the first XV rugby team, ran track and field in the summer and had a short stint at triathlons, "but basically I loved cycling".
To further his cycling dream, Patrick left New Zealand 12 years ago, aged 18.
"I more or less went to take a gap year and stayed."
Initially, he went to the United States and for the next four years rode for the Bissell Pro Cycling team. He would come back to New Zealand in the offseason and compete in the Tour of Southland, the REV Cycle Race in Cambridge and has twice won the Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge.
Competitors are not allowed to bring family or friends to the Tokyo Olympic Games, because of the pandemic, and Patrick says it's a shame the normal Olympic vibe will be missing.
"I only fly in a few days beforehand and leave two days after the time trial."
After the Olympics, Patrick will finish the UCI World Tour season and race in the world championships in Belgium. Then he is hoping to come home to New Zealand, having last been home 18 months ago.
"It hasn't got any easier in the past 12 months [with the pandemic]."
Then it's back to Andorra via the Middle East.
A New Zealand champion in criterium racing, time trials, and in the points race on the track, the only national title to elude Patrick so far is the road race title.
"I'll line up and do my best to win the New Zealand road cycling title. But the time trial event is my focus."
