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Doors open for Gate

As career moves go, winning four gold medals at the Commonwealth Games – including the prestigious road race – is a potential bonanza for Aaron Gate. Phillip Rollo reports.

Quadruple Commonwealth Games gold medallist Aaron Gate could be mixing it with more of the world’s best bike riders on a more consistent basis next year, with or without a WorldTour contract.

Bolton Equities Black Spoke Pro Cycling, the New Zealand team Gate has been racing with for the last 21⁄2 years, has made an ambitious move to become a UCI ProTeam registered team from 2023.

If its application is successful, it would move Black Spoke from Continental up to the second-highest level of professional cycling, below only the WorldTour.

It would enable the team to enter much bigger races including some top-tier events. Four ProTeam teams were invited to compete at the Tour de France this year.

Black Spoke’s announcement came straight after of Gate’s recordbreaking Birmingham Commonwealth Games campaign, where he won gold medals in the road race, team pursuit, individual pursuit and points race.

A WorldTour team could still come calling, with Gate revealing he has been ‘‘inundated’’ with interest since his stellar performance in the road race, but he has committed to Black Spoke’s ProTeam push, excited by chance to return to a level of cycling he has not ridden since his stint with Aqua Blue Sport in 2018.

Gate believed he could play a vital role in helping foster the next generation of New Zealand riders.

‘‘I’m going to be sticking around which is pretty exciting and picking up where I left off with Aqua Blue and back racing at a higher level again and getting access to a better level of racing is going to be pretty cool,’’ Gate said.

‘‘Now that we’re stepping up a level it’s important to have guys around that are experienced to help develop [the next generation] and guide them through.’’

Gate outsprinted a host of WorldTour stars, including former Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas and Daryl Impey to become a surprise winner of the 160km road race in Birmingham, making him the first New Zealand athlete to win four gold medals at a single Commonwealth Games.

The road race victory was the most impressive of his four wins because of the superior level of competition he was up against and the fact Gate was the only New Zealand rider without a WorldTour deal on the start line.

In fact, Gate has never ridden for a WorldTour team during his decade-long career as a cyclist but his record-breaking performances for New Zealand at Birmingham has made many international cycling followers question why the gold medal winner can’t secure a top-tier deal.

The Aucklander conceded age could be a factor. He is now 31 and WorldTour teams have shifted their thinking when it comes to recruitment towards trying to unearth the next big thing, especially after Tadej Pogacar became the youngest winner of the Tour de France since 1904 at 21 three years ago.

New Zealand’s youngest WorldTour rider is 20-year-old Finn Fisher-Black.

‘‘Teams are definitely looking at younger and younger riders on the back of young guns being at a level above what they ever were.

‘‘Perhaps it’s just from kids training harder at a younger age and getting into it a lot sooner, athletes do get burnt out so to speak at an earlier age but age is for sure something teams look at. ‘‘Once Aqua Blue stopped it wasn’t in my favour even when I was 27. If a team could look at a guy with similar accolades and attributes that is 22 then that is the favourable choice.

‘‘But you just need one breakthrough result and a consistent season around it to get teams interested and sure enough the Comm Games win has definitely sparked that.’’ The closest Gate came was when he spent two years with second-tier team Aqua Blue Sport between 2017-18.

His only grand tour start came with the Irish outfit at the Vuelta a Espana but the team folded in late 2018, forcing Gate and his New Zealand team-mate Shane Archbold to find new teams at a time when most rosters had already been filled for the following year.

Gate ended up taking a contract with EvoPro Raving for 2019 at short notice but he said the team was ‘‘an absolute shitshow’’ in the way it was run and claimed he was left out of pocket.

‘‘I wasn’t paid the money I was owed in my salary so it was definitely a very challenging year.’’

The formation of Black Spoke in 2020 came at the perfect time and allowed Gate to return to Europe, this time with an all-New Zealand squad (they have since recruited adopted KiwiScotsman Mark Stewart).

The team was set up with the purpose of developing the next generation of New Zealand riders by giving them opportunities to race at a decent level.

This year alone he has raced in Belgium, France and Greece.

‘‘I thought this was a pretty cool opportunity, a pro team out of New Zealand and racing with Kiwis overseas, it was hard to not get excited about it,’’ he said.

‘‘To have Murray Bolton back Kiwi cyclists and give us the opportunity to race at a high level is unprecedented and the depth in the team is growing and that shows that everyone realises it’s a cool opportunity and is making the most of it.

‘‘What happened at Aqua Blue, we had guys that stepped down from the WorldTour level to Pro Conti level and you could see they were just there to clip the ticket and it was just a job for them and the passion

had gone. Where now it’s an injection of youth and guys that are hungry to race, which makes it a fun team to be a part of and I think that’s why we’ve been so successful.’’

A major benefit of riding for a New Zealand trade team is that Black Spoke have been very supportive of Gate’s commitments on the track, which enabled him to tackle five different events at the Commonwealth Games.

The road time trial was the only event he did not medal in but he still finished a creditable fourth in a high quality field.

Gate said he had contemplated retiring from the track had New Zealand won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last year but after crashing out of the team pursuit while leading Australia in the bronze medal race he was determined to give it another crack in 2024, especially after such a successful Commonwealth campaign.

‘‘If Tokyo had gone to plan and we’d won gold or whatever, I would’ve been like OK that’s that goal ticked off I’m now ready to move on from the track and let somebody else have a crack and focus on the road, because I’ve definitely got unfinished business on the road that I want to pursue.

‘‘Even lately when the conversations were coming up if I was going to stay with Black Spoke or move elsewhere, I was deliberating that as well because that’s a luxury I have with Black Spoke.

‘‘I still have the option of attending training camps on the track for the key events and the success at the Comm Games [reinforced] that this is the right decision.

‘‘I still want to race for New Zealand at the next Olympics and I think we still have a good chance at gold with the team we have.’’

Looking back on his four wins, Gate said the team pursuit – bouncing back from the broken collarbone he suffered at the Olympics – and the road race were the two that stood out.

‘‘The first one meant a lot because something I really wanted to do with the guys was win that gold medal in the team pursuit.

‘‘I felt like I owed it to them to put out a good performance and to carry them to that podium was pretty special.

‘‘The road race was the most unknown of them all. It was almost like a bonus race I had a chance to do because I was the only rider amongst the team that isn’t currently at the WorldTour level.

‘‘They selected me on the fact that every single one of us were guys that could be in a situation that I was in and had the ability to sprint from a small group and win.

‘‘The way it panned out with me being in the front, the guys still had faith in me to finish it off and definitely it did feel pretty special compared to the other ones because it’s my first big result on the road.

‘‘The guys I was able to put away on the front of the group, Geraint Thomas is just coming off a third at the Tour de France and won the Comm Games eight years ago. It was a pretty cool moment.’’

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2022-08-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

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