What's the best way to win a Commonwealth Games medal? Train hard, sweat blood and tears and sacrifice everything in the purusit of success? Not neccessarily.
Eddie Dawkins Photo: Photosport
For track cyclist, Eddie Dawkins, a cheeky bet with a rival coach and no training whatsoever can lead to not only a medal but a Commonwealth Games record.
"Always got to pay up on your bets mate haha. I never take anything like that lightly and I'm not going to come out here and ride around in an average time I want to put everything into it and I didn't really do any training for it apart from riding on the aero bars so I wasn't too wobbly. I basically just came out and gave it the beans and yeah Commonwealth Games record."
The man that put him up to it, was of course an Australian.
"His name's Nick Flyger, he's the head of cycling Australia's track cycling programme and I went up to him after my ride and he was like, 'Oh yeah I didn't think you were going to do it', but here we are."
A bottle of whiskey is now coming Dawkins way, with the big southlanders now one of just four men to have gone under the magic minute in the time trial at sea level, not bad for a rider who hadn't raced the time trial since 2013, and only dabbled in a few practice laps in Cambridge before heading to the Gold Coast.
"I was pretty pumped eh, I was rolling around in the last lap like man my cadence is low and I'm creeping along. I thought maybe I'd come up and see a 1:02 minute lap or something and I'd be devastated but crossing that line looking up at the big screen I was like 'oh yeah that's mean' all the hard work during that race had paid off and yeah it was awesome.
"I had an idea of what I wanted to do but I didn't know the toll that this week would take on my body and it was pretty tough and I got off to a slower start than I wanted to but I managed to claw a little back and then yeah amazing to dip under that magic minute."
Eddie Dawkins blows a kiss to the crowd. Photo: Photosport
Making Dawkins' performance even more remarkable - the way he responded to a less than ideal start to race day.
"I woke up this morning and felt hungover mate, so many energy drinks you know it's just ridiculous. As the week goes on, the amount of caffiene needed to get back to the same level of alertness gets higher and higher as you get more and more used to it and I woke up and felt like a zombie.
"I was super nervous when I got to the velodrome but all the energy and the buzz of the crowd got me in the zone and I felt ready to race, Dawkins said.
So is Dawkins now considering taking on the time trial fulltime? He's a little reluctant, but he said he probably won't have a say in the matter.
"My coach is pretty excited about it and when he gets something in his head he just can't stop haha, so you'll probably see me on a set of aero bars doing the time trial in the next year."
-RNZ
