Off the tracks — the rise and fall of cycling champion Jack Bobridge
Champion cyclist Jack Bobridge’s sentencing to prison in Perth last week completed a dramatic fall from the podium of his sport to prison in less than three years.
The first any of Jack Bobridge’s teammates, coaches or Cycling Australia officials learned that his career was over was when they read about it in the paper.
It was November, 2016, three months after his last ever race in the team pursuit final at the Rio Olympics and there had been close to zero contact from him after he won his second silver medal.
There had been some brief discussion between Bobridge and the team about the lure of riding on to the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
He’d won four gold medals at Commonwealth level and there was the chance to equal or even surpass Anna Meares’ record of five.
But as the weeks went by and the communication stopped, Bobridge decided it was time to rack the bike for good, citing the crippling affects of rheumatoid arthritis for over five years.
There were days like the 2016 national road championship when Bobridge pushed through the pain barrier and rode 90km solo to win his second senior road title in Buninyong.
Or days like February, 2015, when he pushed his body almost beyond its limit to fall 500m short of breaking the world hour record (51.850km) in Melbourne.
But there were also days before he started taking weekly methotrexate medication - also used to treat cancer patients - when he was unable to open a soft drink bottle, put on his socks or even get out of bed.
So after eight years, three Olympic cycles, four world titles and an individual pursuit world record, enough, he decided, was enough.
“Since the (Rio) Games and backing off the training and racing load I’ve found my arthritis has been 100 per cent better and I’ve been able to get off all meds (medication) as well,” he said at the time.
“I don’t really care what anyone else thinks I could have done or what I’ve done, I only went back to Europe this year to finalise things in my own head and I found it wasn’t enjoyable with the arthritis and the pain.
“Obviously I love the bike, the racing and the lifestyle, but I’ve got a two-year-old (daughter) now and I could drag on for three or four years but come 40 or 50 the damage it’s going to do and the arthritis in my body ... I don’t see sport is worth it.”
Despite being taken aback by his decision to retire from the sport at the age of 27, Cycling Australia reached out to Bobridge and offered him the same support it does all of its athletes embarking on life after the sport.
There were the official things like a letter outlining what was available to him then the official phone calls and even personal ones to check up on him, but Cycling Australia chief executive Steve Drake said to his knowledge, Bobridge declined the help.
“When people transition out, whether that’s retiring or they’re a member of the national track team and their membership isn’t renewed for whatever reason, they are offered support services and the primary one that would relate to Jack is 12 months of access to psych support and some form of welfare and personal excellence staff support,” Drake said.
“That was certainly offered to Jack.
“He didn’t (use it). When he decided to retire we sent him a letter because everyone coming out of the team is sent a letter informing them what is available to them, and there were a number of follow ups - official calls and more informal ones - and there was no engagement from Jack.
“You can offer everything but if people don’t want to take it up you can’t force them to do it.”
Bobridge had a plan. He opened a gym in his new home, Perth, where his two-year-old daughter lived and he began training people to reach their own goals on the bike.
The renovated gym - dubbed ‘Bobridge Cycle and Fitness Studio’ - offered recreational and competitive cyclists the chance to learn from one of the greatest track cyclists in history with spin bikes and virtual trainers linked to TV screens.
“I’m going from being an athlete and being coached to the other side and trying to help other people reach their goals,” Bobridge said at the time.
That was November, 2016.
By August, 2017, he had been arrested and charged with drug trafficking and by July, 2019, he was in jail after being found guilty.
Bobridge has maintained his innocence throughout but will serve at least 2.5 years behind bars.
“I think sadness and disappointment are appropriate phrases,” Drake said this week.
“We’re saddened to hear of what had happened and we very much feel sorry for his family because he’s putting his family through a terrible ordeal as well and we are hopeful he will get some support and he can get his life back on track once he has served his sentence.”
During the trial, Bobridge revealed he had a drug habit but denied he was a drug trafficker. He said he began taking ecstasy and cocaine in 2010 and they were a way to deal with the pain of his arthritis.
Drake said he and Cycling Australia did not have any knowledge that Bobridge was using illicit drugs during his career.
His sentencing in Perth last week completed a dramatic fall from the podium of his sport to prison in less than three years.
Bobridge grew up in Gawler and became one of the northern suburbs’ favourite sporting sons but after last week’s sentencing there are calls to remove his name from the Jack Bobridge bikeway that runs from his childhood home to the Barossa.
He made his Olympic debut in Beijing in 2008 at just 19 where he was part of the team pursuit that finished fourth, and the following year he became under-23 world champion in the time trial on the road.
In 2010 he turned professional with Garmin-Transitions while combining his road prospects in Europe with winning more world titles on the track.
In 2012 he was added to the inaugural roster of Australia’s first WorldTour cycling team, GreenEDGE but never lost his love for the track and in 2011 broke the individual pursuit world record.
His time would stand for seven years before being broken by American Ashton Lambie at altitude in 2018.
A second Olympics beckoned in 2012 but the lead up was marred with controversy when just months before the London Games he was fined and suspended for driving for eight months for a drink-driving incident while out with a teammate in Spain.
He made it to London and won a silver medal with the team pursuit before leaving the track for what he thought was for good, and focusing on the road.
But he endured a tough two years on the road and was lured back to the track for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games where he won two gold medals and spoke about turning his life around thanks to the support of coach Tim Decker and his then wife Josie Tomic who was also an Olympic cyclist.
“To have a wife that knows what’s involved, you couldn’t ask for anything better,” Bobridge said in July, 2014.
“To come back on the boards has put me in a happy spot.
“It’s just in the blood the boards and when I come back I’m always happy to be here.
“For me to come back with the track guys and try to defend my two titles from Delhi, I’m over the moon,” he said.
In January, 2015, he spoke about how fatherhood - and leaving the professional cycling scene in Europe - had rejuvenated him.
“Obviously I love the track and I do that with passion so to come back here and finally make the decision to ride with (domestic team) Budget Forklifts, for sure I’ve found that love for the bike again,” he said at the time.
“Having my daughter was fantastic and she’s wonderful,” Bobridge said.
“So having the family all together within Australia makes things a lot easier as well.
“Hopefully I can show it in my form, but I think it will all come together nicely this year with the way we’ve organised and planned things.
“I’m in a good place mentally and physically so if we can roll that on to track worlds and beyond with Budget it’s going to be a good year.”
From there it was always the plan to ride on to Rio in 2016 but the swan song he imagined almost didn’t happen.
Bobridge rode qualifying in the 4km team pursuit at the Olympics but the team performed below expectations with the third fastest time, and he was dropped for the next round.
He cut a forlorn figure in the Aussie pits in the middle of the velodrome, pondering whether he had just ridden his last ever race on the track as his teammates went on to book their gold medal ride.
But Bobridge was reinstated at the 11th hour for the final against Great Britain and produced one last herculean effort in a bid to win the gold medal that had eluded him his entire life.
Australia’s four-man team pursuit included Alex Edmondson, Michael Hepburn and Sam Welsford and they broke the world record, but Team GB led by Sir Bradley Wiggins broke it by 0.8 of a second more.
There is a photo of Australia’s four riders on the podium in Rio with their silver medals around their neck.
Three of them are smiling and acknowledging the crowd. Bobridge is staring blankly ahead, motionless and expressionless.
After spending his entire adult life in the elite sporting spotlight, the next time Bobridge would enter the public conscience was when news broke of his arrest in Perth, and then again last week when he was sentenced to four years’ jail.
For the best part of a decade Australian cycling fans had admired what Bobridge had done on the bike and now they were wondering how it had all somehow come to this off it.