Rachel Neylan has challenged every conventional way of entering pro cycling, winning the battle against the odds
Australian Olympic Games cyclist Rachel Neylan is a ‘mature-aged’ cycling star by design after putting a career in physiotherapy on hold to go pro.
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Rachel Neylan was on the outer of the pedantic two-wheeler clique as her rise to the top of road cycling was unconventional, perhaps seen as just plain wrong for many steeped inside the sport since childhood.
Taking a calculated gamble in 2007 when she was 25-years-old, Neylan has made the Olympics a goal this year after her Games debut in Brazil in 2016.
Now 37, Neylan was a physio for the Australian rowing team, but wearing the national team kit as she worked on athletes didn’t sit well.
She also rowed for 14 months, dabbled in triathlon and attempted a running comeback before deciding to take up cycling claiming she didn’t want to be a 50-year-old physio with regrets.
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“You don’t have to have your life all worked out at 17, because I didn’t,’’ Neylan said.
“It’s OK to feel a little bit vulnerable, a little bit bold.
“You don’t have to wrap yourself in a security blanket and have a five-year plan mapped out because if you have a tool kit full of resilience, a good work ethic and an educated pathway on how you think you’re going to get there, it’s OK to have a crack.
“On the other side of the fence is security where everything is OK, you’re not going to get hurt, you’re not going to get disappointed, you’re not going to fail, but then you’re settling for mediocrity.
“I was just never wired that way.”
Based in Lucca, Italy since 2010, Neylan threw all the energy she had at the most unforgiving sport on the planet once she made up her mind on being a pro cyclist.
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“I have been on the outside of the ring the whole first part of my career,’’ Neylan said from Ballarat, where she is training for the national road championships elite race on Sunday.
“I stopped in my tracks and thought when I’m 50 I can be a physio, this is a chance for me to do something, there was one window of opportunity and I had to see it and do it myself.
“I was knocking on the door and telling everyone I was ready, but I couldn’t tell anyone, I had to prove it.
“No matter how tight the cliques were or how many times I got shown the door by the Australian Institute of Sport or the federations and people that I needed to impress to get to mainstream pathway.
“I just kept on having to go away and work on my strengths and reassess and keep that self assessment going.
“Refine my weaknesses and keep holding my head high.
“My body that I have is resilient - that’s not to say I didn’t have any help at all, I knocked on the door at SASI and moved to South Australia.
“I did have support working under the late Gary West, which I am eternally grateful for.
“I moved to Adelaide in 2008 to embark on my journey as a cyclist, I took a dive in the deep end, packed up my apartment in Sydney and moved to Adelaide.”
Riding for UniSA the Santos women’s Tour Down Under next week, Neylan had smashed down all the barriers and defied all odds of making it during her incredible journey.
As if coming second at the world road championships in 2012 four years after deciding to cycle for a living wasn’t enough.
Neylan turned heads three years later winning the inaugural Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race as a solo competitor just days after finishing second in the nationals.
Neylan was third in last year’s women’s Tour Down Under.
She has signed a fresh new contract with Spanish pro outfit Casa Dorada Women Cycling which she will join in its UCI debut once her Australian summer season commitments come to an end.