Secret Harbour’s Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn help take men’s team pursuit team to gold medal victory

Secret Harbour’s Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn have cemented themselves in Australian sporting history with a drought-breaking Olympic gold medal in the cycling pursuit team — and setting a new world record in the process. The childhood friends, who grew up in the same suburb and both got their start at the Peel District Cycling Club, achieved the victory in the men’s team pursuit on the 11th day of the Paris Games. They put their skills on show early Thursday morning, WA time, at the St-Quentin-en-Yvelines National Velodrome during a heart-stopping race against fierce rivals Great Britain. The teams were neck and neck for the first three kilometres of the four-kilometre race, with the Australian riders edging ahead by just fractions of a second. A slip-up and a mechanical issue on one of the Team GB rider’s bikes in the last lap gave Australia the edge and they took full advantage, powering home for the victory in 3.42.067, finishing 2.327 seconds ahead of the competition. The gold capped off an incredible run in Paris for the Aussie team, who took out their heat against reigning Olympic champions Italy with a time of 3:40.730, setting a new world record. Leahy said the team had to stay focused during the final and not get carried away by the excitement of the achievement. “We stayed so composed and we didn’t want to let ourselves get too excited after the world record,” he told Channel 9. “There was so much rigidity in our ride and then just letting it all out after. A lot of redemption and a lot of fightback to get there and it all came out.” In another post-race interview, he said advice from team coach Tim Decker had kept the cyclists “locked in” until the final. “My coach told me something nice after we broke the world record: he said gold medals last forever but world records don’t, so we’ve got to come out tomorrow and win that race,” he said. Bleddyn and Leahy rode alongside fellow West Australian Sam Welsford and Kelland O’Brien, who saw redemption after missing out on the medal hunt while competing in Tokyo after teammate Alex Porter’s handlebars unexpectedly snapped mid-race, putting them out of contention. Leahy was there alongside them as a COVID reserve athlete but didn’t get the call-up to compete, making his debut as an Olympian at the Paris games alongside good mate Bleddyn. Asked after the race how he felt as an Olympic champion after his reserve experience, Leahy said his taste of the Olympics in Tokyo was the catalyst to get him to Paris. “I just wanted to be a part of that team so bad and being so close to it drove me so hard to work my arse off to get to this position,” he told Channel 9. “And we hadn’t won that cycle, but it’s about winning today and I knew that we did everything to do that. “I can’t believe it, it’s incredible.” Reflecting on the win later on, Leahy said he had an emotional moment post-race with Decker. “I was just grateful; I said to Tim after the race, just thanks for believing in me when I maybe didn’t believe in myself, and that got the tears going a bit,” he said. “Just gratitude, bit of relief after, there was a bit of pressure, but just happiness I think — we’re happy to get it done. “I think maybe the rest of the world would have counted us out a bit after Tokyo and the following years, but yeah we knew that we were in for a shot of a medal and the win, and we just had to go out there and do it.” Bleddyn, the youngest on the team at 22, said becoming a gold medallist was “surreal”. “I’m not sure what I really expected, to be honest, but I knew in training we’d done the trials and had the numbers and where they should be,” he told Channel 9. “I knew we were in for a shot, we were in for the hunt. “I don’t know, you dream about it as a kid but then when it actually happens, it’s pretty surreal. Yeah, it’s awesome.” Bleddyn, a former Frederick Irwin Anglican School student, met Leahy, who studied at Mandurah Catholic College when he signed up as a 12-year-old to join the Peel District Cycling Club. Peel District president Mark Glorie said Leahy and Bleddyn’s talent stood out from an early age. “I was already 30 years old when they joined the team; the last time I was able to beat them on a bike, they were 14 years old,” he said. “As soon as they’re getting to that point, you could see that they’d got a very bright future ahead. “They rose through the grades and once they were winning A-grade races against people who were five years their senior, then they start getting identified by WAIS.” Glorie paid tribute to the pair and said the club was delighted to see their years of hard work pay off in the form of Olympic glory. “When they were juniors, they were racing with us every couple of weeks. They’re both very laid-back guys, loving having a laugh, but they’re certainly not big-headed about themselves; they’re very down to earth,” he said. “Everyone’s just over the moon and happy for them. You think about all of those early morning training rides, all those sessions on the indoor trainer late at night, all of the gym hours that they would have put in, and it’s all peaked at this point.” While at the club, the duo were coached by Athens Olympics gold medallist for the team pursuit Peter Dawson, who helped them progress from the club’s E-grade to winning A-grade races as under 17s. Thursday’s medal marked the first time in 20 years that Australia has taken out gold in the men’s team pursuit — since Dawson and his team’s victory. He was there in the crowd in Paris to support Bleddyn and Leahy, alongside the team’s passionate family and friends. Following their race, Leahy gave their supporters a “massive thank you”. “The amount of messages we got, I know we all got messages, but some of the people turning out and turning their TVs on at ridiculous hours of the morning, I would have never expected,” he told Channel 9. “And I just want to say a massive thank you, it means the world to us and we hope you can keep those wake-ups going for these boys who still have some ripper racing to come.” Bleddyn will continue on with his Olympic campaign, returning to the track for the Madison event on August 10.