Olympian shares world class experience

Nick A'Hern
Jun 15, 2016
4 min read

Triple Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist, Nick A'Hern, recently had the pleasure of accompanying his daughter Sian, who is carving a career of her own, as a downhill mountain biker, to Europe to race in the UCI mountain bike World Cup for downhill. This time he was experiencing word class sport from the other side as coach/ mechanic/ manager.

This is Nicks story:

First stop was Fort William Scotland UK. As soon as we touched down my brain went into elite athlete mode and the focus was on recovery to overcome jet lag. Fortunately we were staying on the beautiful Lock Levin. Ice baths were made easy courtesy of the freezing lake. Several days later after bike building and food prepping my athlete was ready to commence training. Long steady spin sessions heaps of stretching and strength work on the TRX helped it feel like home.

It was time for our first track walk. Fort William has a reputation for being brutal on both rider and bikes so I was a little nervous to say the least. Sian remained focus with nervous energy starting to emerge. We left the track wondering how the hell she was going to ride this thing. So many difficult sections but the challenge was to make the impossible possible! Two track walks later we were ready to roll down and test our lines chosen. Day one of practice produced some gnarly crashes I wasn't quite sure how to make things better for Sian because to be honest there is no way on earth I would have even tried to ride that track!

Qualifying time to decide race order and my athlete was only just holding it together mentally. More track time was needed to try to find some rhythm on the bike. Amazingly she qualified 19th fastest elite female and fastest junior. We finally had some confidence.

Race day was here! We arrived at the track and the place had totally transformed, 25,000 people had come to see their heroes.it was a very quiet chair lift ride to the top for race run. So nervous for her but she had a quiet calm about her today. It felt right. A final high five for luck and she sped out of the gate down the mountain, out of sight into the walls of screaming fans. As I rode the chair lift down I had a little pray...... That was the longest chairlift ride of my life. As I jumped off the chair one of the other dads said to me ' holy crap dude Sian nearly just died on the last jump' 1st place and first World Cup win in Europe. We were so pumped!!! Retained the junior World Cup leader’s jersey and had her first ever drug test! What a day. 25,000 people got to listen to advance Australia fair and I'm so glad I was one of them.

Another full day of travel and we arrived in Leogang Austria. We followed similar preparation to the previous race but this time the mountain was a lot steeper and it had not stopped raining for days. First track walk done and I was more nervous than Fort William.

Sian like most Aussies had not experienced wet slippery tracks and this one was full of big drops massive rocks and tree roots. We decided to walk it but had no lines because the amount of rain falling would change the track every ride. These were the worst possible conditions on a long demanding track.

Practice saw a few crazy crashes and bits were starting to fall off the bike. Thank god for our friends at Shimano who kept us on track.

Qualifying went all wrong with three big crashes but no injuries. She qualified for finals as a junior but needed a miracle to beat this track!

It was then our strategy changed we realised we are competing against the mountain and the weather, not the other riders. This helped Sian to cope and next thing we know we are on the chairlift on the way up for race run. The usual nerves were there but my athlete was so calm and started to believe she could do it.

High five for luck and she shot out of the start gate. I then had that horrible chairlift ride down not knowing what was happening on course.

At the bottom I saw Sian A'Hern Australia on the results board and was relieved she had made it down. 3rd placed junior and another fantastic elite female result 23rd. Retained the overall junior World Cup leaders jersey another great day!

3 World Cups,3 podium finishes, overall World Cup leader and so many things learnt. What a trip!!hhtps://www.gofundme.com/sianahern

From here, where do we go? There are several more world cup rounds in the series, Switzerland in July, Canada in August and Andorra in September. Sian is desperate to hold onto that leader’s jersey right until the end, so she can achieve her goal, world cup series champion, and ultimately Junior world champion, later in the year at the world championships.

The family have already committed to sending her to Andorra for the final world cup event and world championships later in the year, but the 2 events in Switzerland and Canada were not on the families budget agenda. So Sian has taken the initiative and set up set up a "GoFundMe account" where you can read from Sian herself and donate.Along with working at the local bike shop as much as she can she is hoping to raise as much money as she can so she can get herself to these 2 upcoming events, if not, at least one of them.

Go to the following website to read Sian's story and donate