Hamish Bond Set to Return to Tour of Southland
For immediate use
16/10/18 - His name is Bond,
Hamish Bond - but it will be very much a cyclist, rather
than an Olympic champion rower, who lines up for this
year’s SBS Bank Tour of Southland.
The eight-time
world and two-time Olympic rowing champion has targeted this
year’s tour as another important building block towards
his ultimate goal of representing New Zealand on the bike at
the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“The tour has given me
something to keep me focussed and motivated in the short
term, otherwise it would be easy to put the bike on the rack
and enjoy being at home for a while. If I’m going to enter
something I want to give the best account of myself that I
can,” Bond said.
Bond previously rode New
Zealand’s most prestigious cycle tour in 2009, before
embarking on world domination in the Kiwi pair with Eric
Murray, and again shortly after ending his rowing career
with gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“I think I
consider myself a cyclist now, it’s fair to say that’s
how I view myself at the moment. I feel a bit more confident
in my ability and more aware of my ability - knowing what I
can do and what I can expect from myself, which I think is
quite important,” the 32-year-old said.
“It’s
not quite love, hate, but the tour is a big challenge and
I’m looking forward to taking another step up from where I
was last time. When I came down last it was just after the
Olympics and I’d only been cycling a month or
so.”
Bond will be part of a strong Kia Motors-Ascot
Park Hotel team headed by defending champion James Piccoli,
from Canada.
He recently finished 25th in his
specialist time trial event at the UCI world championships
in Austria, improving on his 39th on debut in Norway the
previous year.
“I was hitting my targets as I was
riding and I hoped that that performance would have me a
little higher up the leaderboard and I guess that was a
reality of the depth and level of international cycling,”
he said.
“The guys at the top are there for a reason
and have honed their craft over a long time and I’m trying
to get up there quite quickly. I guess the reality was that
I’m still a way aways. I’m competitive, but to be truly
challenging the top 10 or the podium, which is the ultimate
of what I would dare to dream to achieve, there’s still a
long way to go.”
Since coming home from Austria,
Bond has spent more time on his road bike than his time
trial machine and entered bunch races around the Waikato to
reacquaint himself with the politics of the
peloton.
He will draw on his experiences from the 2016
Tour of Southland, including knowing how to protect himself
from the conditions after suffering badly on one
particularly cold day.
“I really like an honest
challenge and that’s what you get in Southland. I remember
we had one cold day and I thought I would have revelled in
that, but I hated it and when you are cold your morale can
go out the door really quickly, but I think two years on
I’m more prepared and can take advantage rather than
wanting to get off my bike and go home.”
The
stunning ascent up Coronet Peak and the short time trial on
the final day loom as potential targets.
“I felt
like I performed well last time up Coronet Peak, which is
contrary to being 80kg plus, which most people consider an
obstacle - I think obstacles are largely in the mind,” he
said.
“Also the time trial is something I’ve been
working on for a while now and feel as though it’s
something that I’m relatively adept at on a national
level, although this is something different given that
it’s shorter and on road bikes.”
The 62nd edition
of the Tour of Southland gets underway with the team time
trial around Invercargill’s Queens Park on October 28,
finishing back in Invercargill on November
3.
ends