Simon van Velthooven remembers the weight of the pressure in the air around the velodrome of the London Velopark.
At 23, lining up in the final of the keirin in his first Olympic Games in 2012, it was the kind of moment a young athlete dreams about. But there was added spice in the mixture in the expectation that was on British cycling legend Sir Chris Hoy; a win would have earned him his sixth Olympic gold – then the largest collection of any British athlete.
Van Velthooven, now 36, has had a sporting career like few others, split between track cycling and sailing in the America’s Cup. But when asked if there was a certain moment that stood out as he confirmed his retirement from the professional arena on Wednesday, the London Games was hard to top.
Hoy won the race, while van Velthooven finished with a bronze medal in a dead-heat with Dutchman Teun Mulder.
“The whole country was behind him and, to be racing against him in the velodrome, where it’s just deafening, it was a pretty cool memory,” van Velthooven told the Herald.
“I mean, I wish I’d beat him, but it was also like, I thought I was under pressure and then you watch the race and you think, gee, he must have been under massive pressure being a knight, at your home games, going for your [sixth] gold to be the most successful, in the last race of track cycling, all the royals are watching and all the British aristocrats watching, it was just a cool moment in my life.”
It would be van Velthooven’s only Olympic Games, as his sporting career took a different tack.
He continued to race on the bike for the 2014 Commonwealth Games – claiming a silver medal in the 1km time trial – but van Velthooven was also asked to help Emirates Team New Zealand in the early stages of the revolutionary pedal-power system they were working on for their America’s Cup challenge in 2017.
“I thought I would do another Olympic cycle and then that would be me done because obviously you kind of lose your speed as you get older,” he admits.
“Luckily enough, I just happened to have perfect timing with the whole Bermuda campaign and the route they were choosing to go down. I just went all-in on that with training and presence in the team and just doing what I can to get it to work.”
Van Velthooven became the original cyclor, transferring his skills on the bike into the realm of sailing and racing on the boat in Bermuda in 2017 as Team NZ reclaimed the Auld Mug. It would be the first of three campaigns he would complete with the team – coming away with the spoils on every occasion.
Bermuda was a memorable campaign for a number of reasons, as Team NZ had their issues during the regatta, including a pitchpole crash that initially looked as though it would threaten their involvement in the event.
“The pitchpole was a big one. Being on the boat for that, you come out of that with a bit of PTSD,” van Velthooven said.
“But just winning the Louis Vuitton [Challenger] Series is such a massive hurdle. To beat all the challengers and to do all that racing and for the team to stay mentally focused and in the boat to get through the whole regatta and to then kick again for the America’s Cup against the defenders, it’s just a massive undertaking.
“When you see Ineos winning the Louis Vuitton Series in Barcelona and just how much effort they put into winning that, and then for us just to roll over them in the America’s Cup, it makes you realise how much of a challenge and journey winning in Bermuda was and how hard it is as well.”
When the cup returned to Auckland in 2021 for the next edition, the new class of boats – the AC75 – reverted to hand-powered grinding pedestals rather than cyclors. In a bid to keep his position on board, van Velthooven threw himself into training – noting his joy at seeing the numbers he was putting up in the gym with a bench press of about 170kg after squatting 230kg during his track cycling days. He said he was still squatting about 200kg at that point.
“I mean, you should do those numbers when you’re professional athletes,” he said.
“Then just to put that power out in the handles at home in Auckland on the Waitematā Harbour was pretty cool. I’d love to see the America’s Cup back here. It was a great place to race and sail and train. I hope one day in the future it will.”
In Barcelona last year, van Velthooven was again on board as Team NZ defended the Auld Mug, this time back on the bike as cyclors returned. He was one of several cross-code athletes on the pedals, alongside the likes of Hamish Bond (rowing, cycling), Dougal Allan (multisport), Louis Crosby (cycling) and Cam Webster (rowing).
It was the last America’s Cup regatta for the foreseeable future that will feature manual power, with cyclors to be replaced by battery power for the cycle culminating in Naples, Italy, in 2027. Van Velthooven said they had been kept in the loop with developments in that area, and it was a case of the ever-continuing developments being made in the cup arena.
He will step away from professional sport as a three-time America’s Cup winner and an Olympic, Commonwealth Games and World Championships medallist and, in just finishing up an investment advisory qualification, will look to step into the field for his next chapter.
That’s not to say he’s done with sailing completely.
Recently, he had spent time competing aboard maxi yachts alongside a host of fellow ex-America’s Cup sailors and will look to continue his involvement in that area.
“That will never stop. That’s where sailors go to retire kind of thing,” he said.
“It’s quite fun really because it’s just a big America’s Cup reunion. Like, you go to these regattas ... and you see guys that raced in Bermuda and you see the old guys from the Valencia days and you see guys from the San Fran boat that you looked up to watching them race on TV and now you’re kind of racing with them and sharing war stories from the America’s Cup.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.