Cycling: Grace's selection is down to sheer guts

By CHRIS BARCLAY

SYDNEY - You might expect Justin Grace to have had a gutsful of cycling after a life-threatening illness sidelined him for seven years.

Not that track sprinting had anything to do with his being afflicted with ulcerative colitis, a debilitating disease which eventually saw him surrender all but a football-sized pouch of his large intestine to a three-pronged surgical procedure at the end of 1995.

But the requirement to be supremely fit did not make for a straightforward recovery.

Lying in Auckland's Mercy Hospital wasting away - he lost 12kg - Grace always thought he would return to the velodrome and continue an international career which started at the 1989 Oceania Games.

It gradually dawned on him that reaching that goal was more complicated than simply getting back up on the bike after a spill.

"When I first started I was just trying to eat and train like I had been used to, but it just didn't work, I kept getting sick," he said.

"It took a few years for me to figure it out and my body to get over the surgery and adapt to how my new innards work.

"I had a lot of trouble with my fluid intake. I need a lot of electrolyte replacement. There are vitamin deficiencies and regular blood tests." Suspecting that he would have to go through all the above, Grace chose to persevere with the illness when it was first diagnosed.

He carried the disease for at least seven years before finally bowing to medical advice and having surgery after failing to make the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Aware that colitis - which ulcerates the lining of the intestine and causes extensive bleeding - could develop into bowel cancer, Grace's father booked him in for surgery after he missed selection by "a couple of hundredths of a second."

Much of the Olympic year was consumed with medical checks and follow-up treatment, and with the physical recovery consuming so much time and effort, mentally Grace found cycling was starting to take a back seat.

"I enjoyed being home and not living out of a suitcase and having some money to buy a car and buy some new clothes. It was enjoyable for a time. I bought a house, got married ... "

It took some mates at Auckland Airport to stir the competitive juices, coaxing him to do the cycling leg in a couple of work triathlons early last year.

"It was good to go and have a bit of fun. I started enjoying it so much I asked my wife [Erika] 'Shall I give it a crack'?"

She was supportive but, as Grace admits, she "didn't know me when I raced before."

"I tried to tell her and got a few of my friends to warn her. I wanted to make sure she understood. She's been very patient. I couldn't have done it without her help."

Grace, now 31, wrote up his own training programme, doubting it would lead to anything.

"At the end of every phase I thought 'Well, I got through that but something will go wrong,' but I just kept going and going."

By the mid-winter he was training as hard as he ever had.

"Every time I got on the bike I was thinking about making the [Commonwealth Games] team.

"Even the really nasty training where you throw up in the garage on a stationary bike, I was actually enjoying it.

"I didn't have to go through the years of learning curves like between 20-25. I had all my training programmes and knew what worked for me and what didn't."

The International Night of the Stars meeting in Wanganui last January confirmed he was on the right track.

He rode a personal-best time at sea level of 10.71s in the sprint.

In a competitive setting he barely feels he has been away, although "you have to be around it all the time to be race sharp."

In a race where raw strength and tactical acumen are essential to win a best-of-three series over three laps, Grace took time to get back into the groove. "It's just a matter of switching your brain into true race mode again. Just a micro-second of hesitation and that's it, you're gone."

In March he competed at the national track championships for the first time since 1993, and won the sprint silver behind Anthony Peden.

He was fourth at the Australian national championships in mid-April and a fortnight later qualified sixth fastest in a Sydney World Cup field that featured world champion Frenchman Arnaud Tournant and Commonwealth Games gold medal favourite Sean Eadie, of Australia.

In his last competitive outing Grace won a 200m time trial at an Edinburgh grand prix event this month to give him another boost before the Commonwealth Games, a challenge he has the stomach for.

What is left of his large intestine functions well, although there could be some butterflies when he lines up in the first round of the sprint at Manchester on July 30.

- NZPA

Full coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/manchester2002

Commonwealth Games info and related links