A teammate calls it the pout. Her coach says it signals an “elevated Ellesse”. The Kiwi’s opponents have come to dread its appearance.
When Ellesse Andrews takes her place on the start line, world-class cyclists for company and medals to be won, her features are fixed.
It’s a game face, part glare and part promise: my bike is faster than yours. It will be seen frequently in Paris, while the entwined image of Andrews beaming from a podium may also repeat.
Top step, where no New Zealander has stood inside an Olympic velodrome in 20 years, has long been the target for a singular talent.
Andrews is heading to these Games as a gold medal favourite in the keirin, a strong contender in the individual sprint and the leader of a promising team sprint trio.
Unprecedented achievements were in her sights before barely experiencing a major event. Now, with an Olympic silver and world championship collected, Andrews is a feared presence in a thrilling discipline.
Born a racer, the 24-year-old grew into a killer. Opponents exist to be passed - and they know it.
“It’s Ellesse’s mentality,” says coach and father Jon Andrews. “That focus to turn up and be able to stare down your opposition.
“Talking to the Canadian coach during the year, Ellesse raced one of his riders who had qualified considerably faster, but they know that Ellesse in race mode is a far better athlete and a different proposition.
“Ellesse beat her, and the coach said every time you’ve got a sprint coming up against her, it’s just like, ‘Oh no’.”
The memory sparks a laugh. “Which is awesome.”
Ellesse Andrews has made history from the day she was born.
It was December 31, 1999, and at 15 minutes to midnight she became the final baby delivered in New Zealand before the new millennium.
With revellers in the streets and a handful inside Christchurch Women’s Hospital, two top cyclists brought into the world a third, destined for magazine spreads while training wheels were still attached.
Jon Andrews was an Olympian and twice climbed the podium at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, claiming bronze in the sprint and time trial. Angela Mote had been a regular competitor on the country’s mountain bike circuit, preparing for her maiden world championships until Ellesse interrupted those plans.
A prominent bloodline and notable birthday could make a kid feel special, granting an air of superiority that one day might, for example, manifest in a compulsion to crush the enemy. But Andrews treated it as trivia, interesting to Women’s Weekly readers yet irrelevant to her character.
Aspects of childhood in Wānaka were atypical, though. Schoolmates would’ve had posters of heroes on their wall, and a few such posters probably starred Olympians, but none were personalised by a family friend who owned a momentous gold medal.
“I had a signed poster of Sarah Ulmer in my room from 5 years old,” says Andrews, too young to remember New Zealand’s original queen of the velodrome earning individual pursuit glory at Athens. “So I have known who she is for 19 years of my life.”
Emulating Ulmer wasn’t the initial aim. Her parents were hardly alone in propping their tyke on a bike, while Mum would take Ellesse riding on tracks around the Otago region, but the idea of a career on two wheels developed later in adolescence.
“I had aspirations as a sportsperson, not always in cycling,” Andrews says. “I loved playing netball and doing lots of sports.
“I wanted to reach some really awesome heights but I wouldn’t say that was always the goal. Especially starting cycling - it was more of a hobby and more to have fun.
“As I got older, [that’s] when I really wanted to push for it.”
That nascent push came not in the frenzied sprint events she would eventually control but the gradual grind of endurance racing - naturally enough given the poster girl of New Zealand cycling.
Andrews entered her first track meet at 14. An aptitude revealed, soon she was racing and beating the best high schoolers in the country.
Then, shortly after a velodrome opened in Cambridge, Jon was recruited to coach at Cycling NZ and Ellesse’s promise blossomed.
Attending St Peter’s on scholarship - across the road from where Dad worked - Andrews in sixth form won two medals at the junior world championships. Another two followed in 2017, along with a junior world record in the individual pursuit. Ulmer’s event.
Even those deeds gave little hint of the sprinting heights she would hit, nor Andrews’ unshakeable mentality. Nerves in teenage years were prominent but, like her chosen discipline, that would change.
Watching a match sprint is a distressing experience. The tension stems from simplicity: two riders, one victor, an untimed scrap in which speed can be less influential than guile.
Cyclists need subtlety and pluck, particularly in a decisive third race. They must ward off opponents’ attacks, choosing the precise moment to strike. Self-assurance is essential.
“Mentality is so important,” Ellesse says. “It’s important within yourself and it’s important related to everyone else, knowing that where other people may be a little bit weaker, you need to stay strong.
“It doesn’t mean there’s absolutely no nerves, but I need to tune into what I know works for me and bring myself back in mentally to the task.
“You do see people crack under the pressure, especially going to three rides in a match sprint. That third ride is really tough, but you need to move past that.
“You need to get on the track and do it. I feel like that’s where a lot of people struggle.”
Fans who witnessed Andrews’ overnight heroics in Tokyo would recall she never counted among the strugglers.
Twenty-one and relatively callow in sprint competition, she repeatedly showed a blazing pace was enhanced by wit, outfoxing more recognised foes when the stakes were highest.
A silver in the keirin was the first track medal for a Kiwi woman since Ulmer. A couple of wins in the sprint underlined her potential en route to a top-12 result.
“It was a crazy time because I was so young and very green,” Andrews says. “It was one of my first big international events so there was a lot to learn. Medalling was overwhelming and super unexpected.”
Unexpected, perhaps, but a previously unknown Andrews had already envisaged a similar ascendance, expressing her motivation ahead of the Games to become “a rider able to do what no one else has done before”. That dream was quickly realised.
If the Tokyo Olympics were a breakout occasion, the Birmingham Commonwealth Games confirmed she belonged in the elite, winning the individual sprint, team sprint and keirin.
Triple gold was accessorised with team pursuit silver, subbing for an injured Ally Wollaston to complete the quartet. Andrews conserved energy for her day job by dropping away after the gun - three finishers are required - but pedigree was no problem given her endurance roots.
That background, she said, helped build a natural length that came to define her sprint, i.e. sustaining top speed longer than her rivals. And that switch to sprint is part of what sets her apart in New Zealand sport.
Consider many of our most decorated Olympians: kayakers and rowers. Consider how those athletes are unimpeded by their adversaries. Then watch Andrews battle several bikes for the sprinters lane.
“It is different from other sports,” Jon says of the family passion. “A lot of sports are effectively time trials; you can’t be impacted directed by your opposition. The element of that is definitely a big feature of sprint events.”
It’s also a big feature of Ellesse’s success, appearing not only unaffected by opponents but rather the one imposing her will.
“She’s just a born racer,” says fellow sprinter Sam Dakin, set for his debut Olympics. “She gets the pout out on race day and it’s just a different Ellesse.
“That’s what you see from the best athletes in the world - pressure lifts them up, not pushes them down. That’s really what separates her from everyone else.”
Last August in Glasgow, exactly a year before the keirin was scheduled for Paris, Andrews separated herself in the annals of New Zealand cycling, becoming the first Kiwi sprinter to win an individual world championship.
Drawn for the final at the back of a six-strong field, she hatched a plan and launched her strike with a lap left, displaying that unmatched length by holding the lead to the line. Just.
Andrews crossed one hundredth of a second ahead of second place, knocking into third defending champion and eight-time gold medallist Lea Friedrich. “The race played out exactly how I wanted,” she said in the aftermath. “That last acceleration on the back straight was absolutely everything I had.”
It showed, deep breaths delaying celebrations inside the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome - named for the legendary Scot whose six Olympic golds included consecutive keirin triumphs.
Without one secured, it would be folly to wonder if Andrews could replicate that feat in her favoured event: a test of tactical acumen as cyclists navigate a crowd once the pace-setting derny peels away. But athletes of her ability have a way of impairing sound judgment.
“You have to have that confidence,” says Cycling NZ high-performance director Ryan Hollows. “As we have seen the last two years from Ellesse, that confidence is just building with results. She knows she’s got the goods to deliver and she backs herself.
“I would love to think we can break the 20-year drought for an Olympic gold medal in cycling. I know Ellesse will be going there with top spot in mind.”
An implacable quest was rudely disrupted six months before the Games. Racing a match sprint in Adelaide, Andrews clipped her opponent’s wheel and crashed to the track, Olympic preparations waylaid by a concussion and broken collarbone.
“I remember coming to pass the rider and just feeling sucked in - and then I was on the ground. It was a really confusing crash,” she says. “I remember sitting there and holding my collarbone and thinking about my head, because I hit my head and felt a big flash.
“It’s definitely worrying and it takes a little while to get back into the swing of things, which was a real motivator for me to go to Canada and race when I did.”
The Nations Cup in Milton came 10 weeks after the big flash. Andrews won the keirin and finished second in the sprint. It’s easy to believe the crash had no impact on her Olympic hopes.
“I’ve recovered 100%, so I’m just looking forward and putting that period of the year behind me,” she says. “I’m really happy with where I’m at now - I feel I’m in exactly the same place I would have been.”
That place, evidently, is front of the keirin class, though it’s far from a clear path to the podium.
Unlike Tokyo, there will be no sneak attacks from an unrecognised rookie. Unlike Birmingham, the competition is a full complement of the world’s best. Unlike Glasgow, these precious metals are offered only quadrennially.
Andrews is aware the target she’s chasing applies another to her skinsuit: “They do look for me, but that doesn’t change what I’m going to do.”
And why would it? Why alter a process that reaps such significant results, attained by a racer who seems a discrete version of Ellesse?
“You absolutely have to have that, especially as a sprinter,” she says. “You have to be so ruthless on the track but then balance that out with your personality off the track.”
Coach Andrews concurs, seeing his daughter transform as readily as she lifts a bike from the rack.
“She’s really good at switching on and switching off,” he says. “She’s an athlete that turns up on race day. If anything, you get an elevated version of Ellesse on race day.
“She doesn’t appear to suffer nerves - although she is nervous, she has really good control of all of that. She’s very focused about what she wants to do, sets her own goals and has a steely determination.”
A life in sprinting has provided Andrews many pursuits.
Silver three years ago was the third Olympic medal for a female New Zealand cyclist - after Ulmer and Sarah Walker in BMX - and the first for a sprinter.
It was this country’s third sprint medal - after Simon van Velthooven in the keirin and team trio Eddie Dawkins, Ethan Mitchell and Sam Webster - but gold remained elusive.
Now, ranked number one in the world for keirin, Andrews’ mission in France is matched by an enduring goal.
“We need to pave the way for more female sprinters in New Zealand,” she says. “It’s really important to me and special for me to do that.
“There’ve been a lot of great male sprint role models, but we’ve never really had female sprint riders in the best group of girls in the world.”
While greater expectations are found in that group, Andrews welcomes the responsibility of performing for the girl or boy whose bedroom wall is adorned with her image, channelling the energy instead of carrying a burden.
Dakin, our sole male sprinter in Paris, understands the weight Andrews bears, yet has an inkling it’ll prove lighter than the air in her tires.
“I feel for her with the expectation she has going into these Games to win medals. But she is so impressive on race day. She steps up and knows how to turn it on.”
Those around her on race day know what that looks like. Asked about her teammate’s reference to the start-line pout, Andrews laughs.
“Apparently I do, but that’s not an intentional thing; I think that’s just my race face,” she says. “That’s just my face.”
Get used to that face. It might engender dread in opponents, but for Kiwis it should bring joy. And fast.
Kris Shannon has been a sports journalist since 2011 and covers a variety of codes for the Herald. Reporting on Grant Elliott’s six at Eden Park in 2015 was a career highlight.
