A young Bevilacqua, is pictured in only his second Coolangatta Gold – before a finish in the middle of the pack – the same year Ali Day won the second of his record six titles.

He came across the photo, taken in 2013, in the midst of his race-week preparation before the famous 41.8km slog’s return this Sunday.

That year was a watershed one for Bevilacqua, who produced his then-best finish in the Gold and scraped into his maiden Ironman Series – the first Tasmanian to qualify.

Fast-forward eight years and the reigning 2019 Coolangatta Gold champion – it did not go ahead last year due to Covid border restrictions – has spent the past 24 weeks getting the best out of his body in preparation for the greatest test of his career this weekend.

Since Day’s breakthrough title success in 2012 he has never lost a Coolangatta Gold he contested – in fact, he has not come close to losing.

He was not in the field in 2019 when Bevilacqua won a sprint against best mate Matt Poole to etch his name alongside the greats of the sport as a Coolangatta Gold champion.

But the former Mooloolaba training
partners will reprise their longtime rivalry on Sunday: the reigning champ versus the Gold’s greatest athlete.

In a sport featuring famous names – the likes of Day, Eckstein, Mercer, Hurst, Holmes and Hendy – a second Coolangatta Gold title would go a long way to placing the boy from Tassie in that same rarefied air.

Bevilacqua still has to pinch himself at the thought of it. Because, unlike those names, he was not a prodigy.

“Guys like Ali, Pooley and Kendrick (Louis) were 18-year-old superstars who were mixing it with the best even at that age whereas I, in comparison to them, couldn’t even swim.”

HAVING A SWELL TIME

Watching Bevilacqua power through 2m swells for fun, it is hard to believe not that long ago it was anything but easy for him.

After finishing school in Hobart, his gap year – before a planned return to study medicine – was spent on the Sunshine Coast training under Michael King, in a squad featuring the likes of Day, Poole and Josh Minogue.

By then Bevilacqua had won the Tasmanian Open Ironman title – the youngest to do so, at 16 – but there was no bravado in that success. Surrounded by some of the sport’s very best, he felt humbled.

“I wasn’t very talented, I couldn’t mix it with these guys when I came up here,” he said.

“It was two or three years of the hardest work of my life to make the Ironman Series, and really slow progress.”

The first five years of his career were
spent on the Sunshine Coast, before a move to the Glitter Strip where he linked with
legendary Australian swim coach Denis Cotterell at Miami.

Training alongside Grant Hackett and Tom Fraser-Holmes, Bevilacqua’s love affair with becoming a better swimmer began.

For the better part of a decade, he has never wavered from his minimum four swim sessions a week.

His Ironman schedule, combined with an annual trip to Hawaii for Molokai, means Bevilacqua has roughly four weeks off training or competing each year.

For the mere mortals of the world that seems crazy – and it is – but that is the mindset of a winner. Of a man who has had to work and earn everything he has achieved.

“Everyone asks that of athletes and there’s no one answer, all that jumps out at me is I enjoy being out there, being competitive, and every session is a competition,” Bevilacqua said.

“There’s no feeling like it in the world. When you cross that line in first it’s the ultimate adrenaline rush.

“Those winter mornings at 5am, it’s horrible stuff. To jump in and do two hours in the pool. But you cling to those motivations more than ever then.

“My family is at home (in Tasmania) at the moment, I haven’t been able to see them for two years, so hopefully the sacrifices are worth it.”

ENVIABLE RESUME

If Bevilacqua was to call it quits tomorrow he says he could do so content with what he has achieved in his career.

It is a resume that few can match: a Nutri-Grain Ironman Series win, a Coolangatta Gold title, multiple Aussies medals and, of course, five-times a Molokai paddleboard world champion.

“I thought about this the other day – I won the series by a point and won the Gold by fingertips, basically. And I thought if I had lost those ... as an athlete, those fingertips can make all the difference between a satisfying career and an unfulfilled one,” he said.

“If I did quit now I would be satisfied, which is a really cool platform to spring off and probably why I’m so chilled about things. But I won’t retire, I love it too much.

“I have a lot more goals to tick. I really want to win an Aussie Ironman title, win another series ... beat Ali this weekend.

“Obviously Ali wasn’t there for the 2019 Gold, so I still have a bit to prove there.

“My Ironman Series results are pretty good, consistent. I have a first, second and third. But definitely still a lot to prove to make sure I’m up there with those (big names) in the sport.

“They were all lucky to be born up here, none of them Tasmanians, so I feel like I’ve got to have a little bit of a chip (on my shoulder).”

INSPIRING THE DAILY GRIND

They have trained together, raced together and even co-starred in a reality TV show.

As two of the premiere ironmen of the past decade, Bevilacqua and Day’s careers have been intertwined in more ways than one.

It is a complex relationship the two share, as with all great rivals who must juggle their mutual respect with that cutthroat competitive desire to win.

“We are good mates. We’ve done some really cool stuff together,” Bevilacqua said.

“We’ve been to California and did Deep Water, the reality show, together. We’ve raced worlds, done some motivational tours with Nutri-Grain ... but I don’t know.

“I think it was a little nervy between me and him when we did the media call the other day.”

Deep Water was a series putting star athletes through gruelling physical fitness torture tests.

But it takes a special kind of person to put themselves through the gruelling regimen of an ironman athlete, and only your rivals can truly understand what it takes to meet the starter’s gun in the sand on any given day.

It is why no matter the battles he, Day or ­any other ironman contests, Bevilacqua says there likely will not be a Conor McGregor-­type antagonist.

“I wish there was, because it would make our sport a lot more entertaining if we had those kinds of characters, but this sport is the ultimate humility teacher,” he said.

“You can’t be arrogant for a second, because you’ll get knocked back down quickly.

“I’m out there to win and I don’t care
about anyone else, but there’s always that respect there.

“I wish we had a Conor McGregor, but we don’t.”

BROTHERLY LOVE INSPIRES

There was no surf lifesaving silver spoon for Bevilacqua. As a Tasmanian he did not grow up in the 2m surf, with idols and rivals a stone’s throw away.

His formative years were spent alongside brother Joel, toiling away as a clubbie in Tassie with the Coolangatta Gold a distant carrot.

Like the brothers in the famous movie that spawned the great race, the Bevilacqua boys trained and raced together in Tassie. Taking on the Gold was a chief motivator.

“We were very competitive when we were younger – guys at the club would call us ‘The Ecksteins’,” Bevilacqua said.

Joel pulled the pin on competing in his early 20s. He is now a lifeguard at Bondi, and will handle for his brother when the Ironman Series returns to the famous beach early next year.

Thus it has been on Matt to fly the Bevilacqua flag in competition, and his 2019 success stands as his greatest achievement so far.

“I think I’m more proud of that than my Ironman Series win to be honest,” he said.

“It was a childhood race of mine that I could contest when I was in Tassie.

“I did it when I was 16 and I got sixth or something in the under-19s, which was huge for me. I remember watching the movie as a kid and the two brothers did it – my brother and I drew a lot of similarities there.”

He returns to Coolangatta on Sunday the reigning champion – a label of which he once could only dream. And yet, Bevilacqua is far from finished.

“I won the Gold in 2019 but I think I’ve got a lot further to go,” he said.

“This will be the biggest test of my career this weekend, to see if I can go with the best that the sport has seen (Day). I feel like I can.

“I’ve made all these decisions and sacrifices so now I have to capitalise on it.

“I can’t stop thinking about Sunday morning, 7.30am.”

Bevilacqua‘s vow: ‘I can push Ali further than anyone ever has’

MATT Bevilacqua has spent the past seven days staring at the ceiling of his Mermaid Beach home waiting and wishing for Sunday, 7.30am to arrive.

The reigning Coolangatta Gold champion has had to wait two years to defend his title but the past week has been the hardest.

“It’s not a fun week for me – it takes ages. Every day I have a list of 10 things I need to do that day, and each day is about process, so that I can rock up at 7.30am (on Sunday) and only think about the race,” Bevilacqua said.

And what a race it promises to be.

Six-time Coolangatta Gold champion Ali Day will mark his long-awaited return after missing the 2019 Gold through injury.

Day has never lost a Gold he contested since winning the first of his ­titles back in 2012. In 2018 he moved past Caine Eckstein’s five Coolangatta Gold wins to become the race’s undisputed best.

Only Bevilacqua (2019) and Josh Minogue (2014) have otherwise won the famous 41.8km slog since Eckstein’s 2008 success.

“The race has never been close before with Ali or Caine. They’ve always won it easy,” Bevilacqua said.

“No one has ever stuck with Ali after the ski. He’s broken people in that run after or early in the swim.

“In 2016 I jumped off the ski feeling really good, right next to him with no one else there and thinking, ‘Right, now I just need to swim with him’ … and he swam straight away from me. His feet disappeared.”

But Bevilacqua rates himself a much better athlete now than in 2016, and even 2019, when he bested his mate Matt Poole in a sprint to the finish.

“Definitely my swimming has improved a lot. I’ve focused on the swim because that’s where Ali makes his move,” he said.

“Spending hours and hours out there swimming up and down the surf.

“I’m worlds apart from (2019). I’ve improved insanely since then and I’m really keen to put it all on the line.”

And the Tasmanian has his sights set on joining Day, Eckstein and Guy Leech as a multiple Coolangatta Gold winner.

“I definitely don’t feel pressure. I feel nervous to perform, but not because I won it in 2019,” he said.

“Ali is the better athlete, but Ali made mistakes that summer, he injured himself for entirely his own fault and that’s part of being an athlete – me breaking my ribs last summer, that was entirely my fault.

“There’s no pressure. I just want to perform to where I know I’m at, because I know I’m at a point where I can push Ali further than anyone ever has and potentially beat him.”

Bevilacqua knows a thing or two about legacy – about being the undisputed best in the world at something.

The five-time Molokai Paddleboard World Champion put himself in Day’s shoes ahead of Sunday.

“I think he’s got everything to lose … he might be called the best, but once you topple the champ people forget about it real quick,” Bevilacqua said.

“Which is bull--- really, but that’s the way people do it.

“I’ll happily take the position of underdog and try to topple the best.”