How Roulston's Olympic dream was shattered

Hayden Roulston

Hayden Roulston has been carried to the top of the world by his big body and big heart. They have raced him around the globe as one of New Zealand's top track and road cyclists. And they have carried him to within spitting distance of Olympic gold.

His heart was officially third strongest behind cycling icon Lance Armstrong and one other in their team Discovery Channel - the world's most prestigious road-racing squad. It was a finely tuned machine, and it never let him down.

But last week Roulston's Olympic dream was shattered.

At just 25 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that could kill him if he puts his body under too much stress. "Mate," Ian, the heart specialist told him, letting off a stream of expletives on the way, "you'll never race again."

He'd have cried if he wasn't a solid sort of Ashburton bloke. "I very nearly did eh?" But his giant, powerful heart was already broken.

And so Hayden Roulston, Commonwealth Games silver medallist, one of our major hopes for gold at the Beijing Olympics, sits at the end of a suburban Christchurch cul-de-sac contemplating a life of unexpected ordinariness.

Roulston has plenty of friends, and several are around this Wednesday afternoon: athletic-looking guys sprawled on a beige couch surfing the internet, blonde girlfriends in tight T-shirts chatting at the table. Roulston's red car with spoilers is parked in the drive.

He is tanned and lean, with an open, expressive face that looks surprisingly relaxed, I suggest, considering the death sentence that's just been handed down to his career.

But Roulston looks up, his big brown eyes wide with incredulity. It's been only two days since the specialist delivered the bad news. "Honestly I don't even know what to say. It's so emotionally draining. I'm quite happy with where I am in terms of my career, but I just had one more goal. And that was the Olympics in Beijing. Everything was focused on that Olympic gold. And to be told that I can't even compete, let alone try and win it, is just so mind-blowing, eh. It's really hard to comprehend."

This is the end of a rough two years for Roulston. He signed with Armstrong's Discovery team only to quit early, last year, after months of illness and injury and two drunken brawls which almost ended his career on their own.

But the brutal truth is, he explains, he has sorted himself out and over the past few months was back on track.

This year he signed a professional contract with a smaller American team that NZ number one Greg Henderson rides with; he won the Tour de Vineyards around Nelson, and stormed to the points race silver medal at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

Re-motivated, reinvigorated, and fitter than ever, he had moved to Christchurch following a pep talk from cycling guru Sarah Ulmer, and was entirely focused on Beijing. In anyone's estimation, he was a top medal contender.

Just this past Monday, he had his best training day ever, producing the biggest numbers, the biggest watts. "Everything was pb [personal best] pb, pb."

It was also the last time he had an episode of ventricular tachycardia - five minutes of life-threateningly fast heart palpitations detected by a special heart monitor that pinpointed where the problem was centred.

"And that just frustrates me so much. From the coach ringing up saying, 'You just had the most unbelievable ride', to the next hour going to hospital and them saying, 'You can never ever ride again'. It was just so hard to handle, eh?"

He knew something was wrong while training four weeks ago. His heart monitor started going berserk, and he felt suddenly out of breath. He thought power lines must have been interfering with his monitor and that "maybe I was lacking a bit of fitness or was a little bit sick or something."

"So I just sort of blew it off and kept training."

The same feeling came and went a few more times, then one day about three weeks ago, he realised something was seriously wrong.

"I had the heart-rate monitor on and I could see the numbers, heading up to 250 beats per minute. I was getting that within just like a click of my fingers. It was just going bang! Then dropping down to like 30-something beats. Seeing that gave me a fright but even before it showed up on the monitor I felt it in my heart.

"I felt a wee click. Just a physical click in my heart and then the numbers came up on the power monitor. It was bloody scary, eh?"

Initially the heart specialist thought it was supra-ventricular tachycardia - a problem that struck another professional cyclist and which can be cured. Then on Monday last week, he had the five-minute episode. The monitor didn't lie. All hope was lost.

The specialist took him into a side room and the two of them came close to breaking down together

Did he actually say Roulston couldn't ride again?

"I made him say those words. He said exactly what I didn't want him to say, but he had to say it - otherwise I'd be back on my bike today, that's the way I am."

He was told he had arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, a rare condition which is one of the leading causes of sudden death in young athletes.

There is no cure.

What Roulston has to do is manage his physical stress. For now that means no exercise at all. In the future he may need a pacemaker.

Messages of support have been flowing in, he says, "but nobody really knows what to say to me. Nothing anyone can say can make me feel better. Nothing's ever going to bring back cycling."

Back in Ashburton, where Roulston is somewhat of a local hero, they're taking the news hard. His parents broke down on the phone when he told them. His mother, especially, is having a rough time.

"She works as a supervisor at New World there. And of course she sees everybody."

It was in Ashburton he started out riding BMX bikes, and did well until he realised life was more lucrative on the track.

"So I started with little roadster races that you just ride, no particular bike, and you get like $1.50 to win. That's what my friends were doing and I thought, 'Well with BMXing all you get is a trophy'."

Fairly quickly he became a cycling star, taking out the national under-17 track title, leaving school ("school and I didn't really go in the same sentence") and setting his sights on a career as a professional cyclist.

He worked for two years at the local meat works to make the money needed to throw himself into amateur racing in Europe and earn a place on the professional circuit.

After two years Roulston was signed with Cofidus in France. It was the best day of his life. "For me to sign as a professional when there are so many things stacked against you - everything from the language to the culture to 2000 amateur riders of whom only maybe 25 turn pro every year - you've got to do a lot to prove yourself. I'll never forget signing that contract. It was an absolute dream."

Over the next two years he won two races as a professional and quickly came to the notice of Armstrong's Discovery Channel team. They signed him, but shortly afterwards a looming conviction for assault threatened to derail his career.

In June 2004, Roulston was out celebrating being selected for Athens when he was asked to leave a bar and punched two bar staff who tried to throw him out. Name suppression was lifted in late 2004 and he was convicted of assault.

Team Discovery accepted his apology and the American authorities let him in despite the conviction.

Then last October he was again arrested for disorderly behaviour outside a Timaru pub. The American pro cycling team forgave him again. But late last year he shocked the cycling community by announcing he was quitting one of the world's most prestigious teams, six months before his contract was up. He cited "personal reasons".

Roulston rarely talks about the drinking incidents and rejects the idea that they were somehow symptomatic of his disillusionment with Discovery.

"If I could get an eraser out and rub them off my record I would because it's just not me as a person. People hear my name they're like 'Oh God, bad boy'. But it's not me, honestly, it's just one of those moments when you're just an idiot. I'm sure everyone's grown up and done something stupid while they were drinking.

"Maybe I deserved it. Maybe I deserved to pull my head in. But in saying that, I'm not the guy who goes around bloody causing trouble. It's just not me, eh."

Roulston says he quit Discovery because he was simply unhappy. "I lost the desire. I lost the passion for it. It was like I didn't want to do it anymore; I was forced to do it."

As well as the drinking incidents, he developed a cyst "on the wrong place for a cyclist" and spent three months off his bike recovering. He had a contract which paid him regardless of whether he turned up for a race and a lifestyle totally dominated by the needs of the team. He lost all motivation.

"Through it all Discovery was so supportive but it came to the end of the year [2005] and I was just fried really. I was just like 'Look I don't want to come back. '."

Now he would turn back the clock and stay with Discovery if he could. Not that he regrets his decision. "You've got to do what makes you happy at the time."

But the truth is, he is plagued by "what ifs?"

"Right now, looking back, you just don't know how lucky you are. For someone to be fit and healthy - that's what I say to so many people now. You never know how lucky you are. You never know when your time's up. I wish I had known it back then. Then a lot could have been different."

Is he worried about becoming a nobody?

"Nah," he says. "I was never in this to be known as Hayden Roulston the cyclist, you know. I couldn't give a rat's ass about that, eh. I was just doing my own thing."

What will happen to his body now? He laughs. "Well I'm probably going to become a big fat couch potato. No, I can't see that. There will always be something I can do. I'm not going to sit and do nothing because it's not in my nature."

He hopes to become a good coach. It's something he has always wanted to do and he has already taken on up-and-coming women's cyclist Lauren Ellis and other young Ashburton hopefuls.

Whether that gets him to Beijing, he's not so sure. He can barely bear to think about it. "I mean not to be walking out at Beijing. I think the Olympics is going to be where it hits home most. I don't think I can think about Beijing at all, whether it's from a coach's point of view or a handler or a bloody orange boy."

Instead he thinks about his new life. And of his past. About that he's fairly philosophical.

"I don't really regret anything. But I sort of wish ... it's hard to say, but you just don't know how lucky you are till you lose something you love."