In 1995, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made an exciting announcement. Mountain biking would be a new sport at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Immediately, the AIS launched a mountain biking program. Cadel was an obvious choice for the new program, and he was awarded a scholarship.
Creating a training program for mountain biking was a challenge. The AIS’s Heiko Salzwedel was an outstanding track and road cycling coach, but he had little experience with mountain biking. When mountain biking was announced for the Atlanta Olympics, the AIS hired Cadel’s coach, Damian Grundy. Salzwedel and Grundy teamed up. Together, the two coaches brought the AIS mountain biking program to life.
At first Salzwedel didn’t think mountain bikers were serious athletes. They seemed to spend most of their time laughing and covered in mud. From Salzwedel’s point of view, the sport was as much about mucking around as it was about racing.
A trip to the Australian Mountain Bike Championships in New South Wales’s Snowy Mountains changed Salzwedel’s mind. He saw that the mountain bikers were just as talented as the road and track riders. The difference was the mountain bikers seemed to have more fun.
Salzwedel took mountain biking even more seriously when he saw Cadel’s amazing physical abilities. The coach used strict, traditional training methods but he was also interested in new technology. Salzwedel tested Cadel’s VO2 max. VO2 max is a measure of the body’s ability to transport and use oxygen. The higher the VO2 max, the fitter the athlete. Cadel’s VO2 max was one of the highest ever seen at the AIS. It still is today.
Cadel’s power-to-weight ratio was also exceptional. Power-to-weight ratio means how much power an athlete can produce per kilogram of body weight. Still a teenager when he arrived at the AIS, Cadel weighed less than seventy kilograms. He was incredibly powerful though, so his power-to-weight ratio was very high. This made it easier for Cadel to power up hills than for heavier athletes.
Cadel’s power was useful for his mountain biking, but Salzwedel thought it would also make Cadel good at road racing. Maybe one day Cadel would enter Europe’s famous pro road bike races. Cadel didn’t take this idea too seriously. His biggest heroes at the time were still mountain bike stars.
Nevertheless, Cadel’s coaches pushed him to race in road events as well as mountain bike races. Both Grundy and Salzwedel thought road racing would make Cadel a better mountain biker.
During his early days at the AIS Cadel spent almost half the time overseas competing in both mountain bike and road racing events. Then he scored a contract with the American pro team Diamondback and was travelling even more. That’s when Cadel’s career really took off. He was still on his AIS scholarship, but now he was winning big races in a pro team and making money doing what he loved.
Life as a young pro rider was fun, but sometimes it could be lonely too. Most of the time Cadel travelled to overseas destinations by himself. At the end of each day he had none of his old friends to hang out with, and no mum around for support when he needed it. For a quiet, shy guy like Cadel it must have been hard to be away from the people and places he knew.
When 1996 rolled around, it was a huge year for mountain biking and for Cadel. The sport made its Olympic debut in Atlanta, and Cadel was selected to be part of the Australian team.
Cadel competed in the Olympic cross-country event. Race day was hot and the competition fierce. Cadel was racing against huge names like Bart Brentjens and Thomas Frischknecht as well as his arch-rival Miguel Martinez of France.
Nineteen-year-old Cadel had already racked up a number of international race wins. He was the youngest competitor in his Olympic event but, as usual, Cadel expected big things of himself. This time he expected too much.
Cadel needed to step back from things and look at Atlanta as just another race but instead he put so much pressure on himself that it stopped him performing as well as he knew he could. The problem was he was so caught up in how much the event meant.
Cadel came ninth in the Olympic race. Brentjens won the gold medal, Frischknecht the silver and Martinez the bronze. Despite the new AIS program, Australia didn’t place in any mountain biking events.
Though it had been a thrill to represent Australia at the Olympics, Cadel was not happy with his performance. But he soon got his confidence back. Later that season he earned a podium finish at the World Cup and a bronze in the under-23 World Championships.
A podium finish
The top three results in a professional bike race are first, second and third. These three results are referred to as a podium finish. At the end of the race, the first-, second- and third-placed riders are invited up to a raised podium for a ceremony in front of officials and fans. Some riders aim for first place. But for many riders, their ambition is just to reach the podium in second or third place. A podium finish in major international races is considered a huge accomplishment and a career highlight.
It was as a 20-year-old that Cadel really showed his potential as an elite mountain biker. His first big success came at a World Cup race in Wellington, New Zealand.
The race was six laps of a punishing 8.4-kilometre course. Italian Dario Cioni led until the fourth lap. At that stage, Cadel was holding on in fourth place. During the fifth lap Cadel sprinted away from the main group of riders to try and take the lead. In bike racing, this move is called an attack. Cadel’s attack worked. He was passing some of the best riders in the world, including Cioni. Cadel grabbed the lead.
Then the rain started. It poured. The steep course was now dangerously slippery. But that didn’t stop Cadel from clinging fiercely to the lead. He crossed the finish line first, raising both arms and yelling. His Diamondback jersey was splattered with mud and so was his sweaty face, but Cadel didn’t care. He was too excited. He found Martin Whiteley, who was working as an official at the event. Cadel jumped on Whiteley’s back like a monkey. Cadel deserved to be excited. At just 20 years of age, Cadel had beaten the world’s best mountain bike riders.
More successes followed that first World Cup race win. Cadel went on to win another World Cup race and place second in two others. In the World Cup series overall, he snared third place. Then Cadel came second in the under-23s World Championships.
Other sponsors were noticing Cadel’s successes and soon he was lured away from Diamondback. He signed with an even more prestigious team, Volvo–Cannondale. The team was a legend of its era, with the best riders and the coolest bikes—glossy blue Cannondale hardtails with front suspension and splashed with bright yellow decals.
Cadel became a key member of the Volvo–Cannondale team. Every new Cannondale bike came in a box with Cadel’s picture stencilled on the side. Not so long ago the pro mountain bikers had been Cadel’s heroes. Now he was one himself, and every bike-mad kid wanted to be just like him.
General Classification
General Classification, or GC, is a category of competition in stage road races. In a typical race the rider that crosses the finish line first is the winner. But in a stage race, each stage can have a different winner. The GC category tracks riders’ time overall—the total time taken to complete all the stages. The GC winner is the rider whose time is the quickest when all their stage times are added together.
Riding for Volvo–Cannondale, Cadel won three more World Cup races and placed in two other World Cup races. Together, these results were enough to win him the entire World Cup series. This was a brilliant result, but Cadel still craved a prestigious one-day World Championship title. A combination of bad luck, punctures and crashes meant he never managed to win the mountain bike World Championships.
At the same time Cadel was winning pro mountain bike races, he also raced road events. At age 20, he won, or placed in, several Australian and international road races. In the following year, 1998, Cadel was still winning mountain bike races, but a new ambition was growing.
Cadel was seriously thinking about his potential as an elite road racer. Sponsors, coaches and the media were wondering the same thing.
Cadel’s legendary ride during the third stage of the 1998 Tour of Tasmania road race got everyone’s attention. This stage was held on the streets of Hobart and finished on top of Mt Wellington, a spectacular mountain overlooking the capital city. Cadel started the stage in second position in the General Classification category. High-profile Australian rider Neil Stephens was leading Cadel by 19 seconds. The previous year, Stephens had become only the second Australian to win a Tour de France stage, so he was serious opposition for Cadel.
The riders reached the foot of Mt Wellington. The race to the top would sort out which riders had real climbing ability. Compared to Stephens, Cadel was still relatively unknown as a road racer. That all changed when Cadel shot ahead of the rest of the field, powering all the way to the top of the mountain. Cadel’s pace was so quick that onlookers thought it would be impossible for him to keep it up. But Cadel just kept grinding away, apparently unstoppable. That day Cadel won the stage and wore the race leader’s jersey for the first time in his career.
Phil Liggett, the legendary commentator known as the voice of cycling, was there that day. He was travelling in a support vehicle behind the leading riders. One thing was clear to Liggett as he watched Cadel’s awesome ride. This young kid had what it took to win the Tour de France one day. Cadel went on to win the race overall, the youngest ever Tour of Tasmania winner.
Not all of Cadel’s races were so close to home. The more his career ramped up, the more time he had to spend travelling to races. It was tedious spending so much time on planes. Cadel knew he had to be closer to the main racing action, so he rented an apartment in Neuchâtel, a mainly French-speaking town in Switzerland. For the first time Cadel regretted not paying more attention in French classes at school. Now he had to learn the language in a hurry. Without knowing any French, even buying food was a struggle.
By 2000, Cadel was spending most of his time overseas. Yet he still wanted to represent Australia in mountain biking at the Sydney Olympics. In the four years since the Atlanta games, Cadel had gone from relative newcomer to a big-time international mountain biking success. He was now a hot favourite for a gold medal in the cross-country event.
Even before the Olympics began, the season was not shaping up to be a good one for Cadel. He raced in the Tour Down Under, a road stage race in Adelaide. Disastrously, he clipped a pedal taking a turn and fractured his collarbone. That put him out of most of the big races that season, both on the road and in mountain biking. Then Cadel injured his hamstring, five weeks before the Olympics.
Injury added to the pressure Cadel was already feeling about the Sydney Olympics. Now aged 23, Cadel had plenty of experience with international events, but the Sydney Olympics were a whole new level of pressure. Riding in front of a home crowd motivated Cadel, but the cheering crowds of Australian fans expected huge things from him. He hated being in the spotlight.
The Olympic mountain bike event took place at Fairfield City Farm in front of 30,000 fans. Cadel’s main rival for the gold medal was Miguel Martinez. For most of the race, Thomas Frischknecht led the field. But he’d gone out too hard and started to fade towards the end. That left Cadel and Martinez battling for the lead. Cadel clung to the lead group until he had no energy left. He dropped back to seventh. Martinez went on to grab the gold medal.
Cadel had desperately wanted to add an Olympic gold medal to his list of achievements. He’d given his best, but it wasn’t enough. For a perfectionist like Cadel that was hard to take. Still, Cadel placed best of the three Australians in the men’s mountain bike team. Australia’s performance in cycling at the Sydney Olympics wasn’t strong, with only one gold at the track.
After the Olympics, Cadel focussed on the next season’s mountain biking World Cup events. But apart from a few place finishes, Cadel didn’t achieve the brilliant results he had in the past. That wasn’t because his talent had deserted him but simply because his attention had shifted. He had started riding for Saeco–Cannondale, a road bike team connected to Volvo–Cannondale. The more Cadel competed in road races, the more he liked them. And even better, he was winning.
While Cadel lost pace in mountain biking during 2001, his road bike race results were impressive. In Lausanne, Switzerland, he beat the famous American rider Lance Armstrong. At the time, Armstrong was at the height of his fame. He’d already won the Tour de France three times and was widely thought to be the best road cyclist in the world. To beat a rider like that was a huge deal for 24-year-old Cadel.
Later in that season Cadel’s road race success snowballed. He won a stage and then the GC in the Österreich Rundfahrt (Tour of Austria). In Italy’s Brixia Tour he won a stage and the GC too. Cadel ended the season with a second place in the Japan Cup.
With results like these, it looked like Cadel’s mountain biking years were over. It was time to give his best to road racing.
Cadel’s Mountain Bike Race Highlights, 1995–2001
1995
3rd World Championships (junior), Cross-Country, Kirchzarten, Germany
1996
5th World Cup (elite), Cross-Country, Cairns, Australia
3rd World Championships (under 23), Cross-Country, Cairns, Australia
9th Olympics, Cross-Country, Atlanta, USA
1997
1st World Cup, Cross-Country, Wellington, New Zealand
2nd World Cup, Cross-Country, St Wendel, Germany
2nd World Cup, Cross-Country, Budapest, Hungary
1st World Cup, Cross-Country, Vail, USA
3rd World Cup (elite), Cross-Country, Overall Results
2nd World Championships (under 23), Cross-Country, Château-d’Oex, Switzerland
1998
1st World Cup, Cross-Country, Silves, Portugal
2nd World Cup, Cross-Country, St Wendel, Germany
1st World Cup (elite), Cross-Country, Plymouth, UK
1st World Cup, Cross-Country, Canmore, Canada
3rd World Cup, Cross-Country, Bromont, Canada
1st World Cup (elite), Cross-Country, Overall Results
1999
2nd World Cup, Cross-Country, Napa Valley, USA
2nd World Cup, Cross-Country, Sydney, Australia
1st World Cup, Cross-Country, Madrid, Spain
2nd World Cup, Cross-Country, Big Bear, USA
2nd World Cup, Cross-Country, Canmore, Canada
3rd World Cup, Cross-Country, Houffalize, Belgium
1st World Cup (elite), Cross-Country, Overall Results
2nd World Championships (under 23), Cross-Country, Åre, Sweden
2000
3rd Australian National Championships (elite), Cross-Country, Kooralbyn, Australia
1st World Cup, Cross-Country, Mont Sainte-Anne, Canada
1st World Cup, Cross-Country, Canmore, Canada
3rd World Cup, Cross-Country, Swansea, USA
7th Olympics, Cross-Country, Sydney, Australia
2001
3rd World Cup, Cross-Country, Grouse Mountain, Canada
2nd World Cup, Cross-Country, Kaprun, Austria
Cadel’s Road Bike Race Highlights, 1995–2001
1995
3rd World Championships (junior), Time Trial, Forli, Italy
1998
1st Mount Buller Classic, Mt Buller, Australia
2nd Stage 2, Geelong Bay Classic Series, Portarlington, Australia
2nd General Classification, Redlands Bicycle Classic, California, USA
1999
2nd Stage 2, Mount Buller Cup, Mt Buller, Australia
2nd Prologue, Tour of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia
1st Stage 3, Tour of Tasmania, Mt Wellington, Australia
1st General Classification, Tour of Tasmania, Australia
2001
1st A Travers Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
1st Stage 4, Österreich Rundfahrt, Kitzbuheler Horn, Austria
1st General Classification, Österreich Rundfahrt, Austria
2nd Stage 2, Brixia Tour, Lumezzane, Italy
1st General Classification, Brixia Tour, Italy
2nd Japan Cup, Japan