There’s nothing extra irritating for an athlete than an damage lay-off.
It is even worse when that damage isn’t one thing that may be simply fastened, nor when the one prescription is to relaxation up and take it simple.
Relaxation isn’t one thing lively individuals do properly.
So maybe it isn’t stunning that when Kristina Clonan went down with a problematic again damage, it led to an extremely tough 12 months.
In actual fact, issues bought so dangerous that she felt just like the 2022 Commonwealth Video games 500m time trial champion would not ever get again to her finest — and may even have to surrender driving at a excessive degree altogether.
“I imply … I had an absolute shit 12 months,” Clonan informed ABC Sport of her 2025.
“It was horrible for me. I questioned a variety of issues, one in all them being if I’d be again driving once more.
“I actually form of hit a little bit of a backside.”
Kristina Clonan received gold on the Birmingham Commonwealth Video games. (Getty Photographs: PA Photographs/John Walton)
The character of Clonan’s damage made issues additional arduous — hers was an damage removed from typical for a bicycle owner.
In actual fact, hers was a difficulty that’s way more widespread in cricket as a bane of quick bowlers — a legacy and illustration of simply how a lot power elite monitor sprinters power by means of the pedals and push within the fitness center to get to and keep on the prime.
“I just about had fluid within the bone,” Clonan defined, trackside on the Anna Meares Velodrome throughout the Nationwide Championships.
“It is vitally irritating as a result of you’ll be able to’t have a cortisone or steroid to assist.
“Actually, time simply fastened it, which, being an athlete going in opposition to the clock, persistence is one thing that I do not actually have a lot of.”
Clonan’s damage torment lasted 9 months, wrecking her season fully as she missed the Santiago world championships.
Nonetheless, the time spent away from the monitor allowed the 27-year-old time to realize some perspective.
And though Clonan stated persistence was not one in all her finest virtues heading into 2025, adaptability and interior energy are clearly among the many affable and interesting Queenslander’s finest qualities.
The keirin is a bonus for Kristina Clonan. Her focus is the staff dash. (Provided: AusCycling/Con Chronis)
Clonan began her profession within the endurance program and loved appreciable success, being topped Oceania street champion in 2015, earlier than profitable the distinguished Austral Wheel Race and racing within the girls’s scratch race on the 2017 world championships.
Nonetheless, lacking out on choice for the 2018 Commonwealth Video games and Tokyo Olympics prompted the Maryborough racer to change to the shorter occasions.
It paid off virtually instantly as Clonan beat out Canadian Olympic champion Kelsey Mitchell with a blistering experience within the girls’s 500m time trial on the Birmingham Commonwealth Video games to win a superb gold medal.
Her time of 33.234 was a brand new Commonwealth Video games report, bettering the one held by fellow Queenslander Anna Meares.
She backed that up the next 12 months with a silver on the world championships in Glasgow after which, as a member of the staff dash squad, claimed bronze with Molly McGill and Alessia McCaig on the Ballerup World Championships in 2024.
Anna Meares (left) had her Commonwealth Video games 500m time trial report taken by Kristina Clonan. (AAP Picture: Matt Turner)
It’s within the staff dash that Clonan has actually discovered her groove, as a part of an Australian squad that’s difficult on the very prime of the game.
However throughout these lengthy days of painful recuperation in 2025, her ideas have been, soberingly, not about getting again on the bike in any respect.
“I suppose at first it was simply to be wholesome once more and never be in ache day by day,” Clonan stated.
“I actually simply wished to get again to common well being.
“If that meant that I could possibly be driving at a very aggressive degree, then I would positively take the chance to.
“I discovered a very nice candy spot with staff dash, I believe it is the kind of rider that I’m and one thing that I actually wish to do for the longer term.
“I believe going into Paris, too, I used to be the one lady [in the sprint program]. So being within the staff atmosphere and having mates positively made a giant distinction.
“That is what drew me again into it, that perhaps with my talent set I may help different individuals additionally get an Olympic dream.”
Kristina Clonan competed in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines on the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games. (Getty Photographs: PA Photographs/David Davies)
Serving to others has develop into one thing of a private campaign for Clonan.
Throughout her damage lay-off, she helped arrange a scholarship with well being and health firm Alpha Important to supply monetary help to up-and-coming athletes who may have it, hoping to arrest a slide in funding alternatives for youthful athletes.
“Arising by means of the system, I had a implausible group at QAS [Queensland Academy of Sport],” Clonan stated.
“QAS continues to be actually robust, however we’re seeing that totally different institutes are struggling.
“A whole lot of the ladies and guys from New South Wales have gone both to WA or SASI [South Australia Sports Institute], so the game is struggling.
“The expertise that I had coming by means of Queensland was not simply nice to develop into bicycle owner; there was a variety of character constructing, and there are a variety of issues that I’ve learnt as an individual.
“I believe that if I may help somebody obtain or expertise what I skilled regardless of not having the identical quantity of funding or help, then I am absolutely on board with that.
“The retention of girls in sport is so vital for me.
“Like I stated, the expertise that I bought by means of sport is one thing that I am going to simply cherish ceaselessly. It is character constructing by means of the highs and the lows.
“I am so grateful for Alpha Important, they’re funding the scholarship, and I actually hope that we will do it 12 months after 12 months as a result of I adore it.”
Kristina Clonan’s scholarship fund was received by 18-year-old street racer Amelie Sanders. (Provided: Kristina Clonan)
The scholarship was awarded to 18-year-old street racer Amelie Sanders, who persistently contested for race wins throughout this 12 months’s ProVelo Tremendous League together with her Meridian Bikebug staff.
Sanders proved her home pedigree by profitable the junior time trial and criterium championships in 2025, ending second within the street race, and is heading to Europe subsequent month.
“She is simply an absolute weapon,” Clonan stated.
“I am so excited to see how she progresses.”
Prioritising the elevation of different athletes throughout her damage lay-off speaks volumes about Clonan’s character.
However her willingness to be taught and acquire inspiration from athletes exterior of biking additionally says loads about how she sees herself — discovering parallels to her progress in essentially the most unlikely of locations.
“Publish-Paris [Olympics], I went over and frolicked with [bobsleigh athletes] Bree [Walker] and Kiara [Reddingius],” Clonan stated.
“They’d just about six months for his or her season, so I went over there, helped them out, and noticed what bobsleigh was like.
Kristina Clonan frolicked with Australian Olympic bobsledders Kiara Reddingius (left) and Bree Walker (second proper). (Provided: Kristina Clonan)
“It actually opened my eyes to how we will run the following [Olympic] cycle.
“I learnt a lot from them. Their sport may be very totally different to ours, and I believe that the way in which that they run it, the way in which that they deal with themselves, the way in which that they’ve a lot accountability and autonomy and the management from Bree is simply, I’ve realized a lot from them, and I am so grateful to have them in my nook
“They’re friendships that I am going to cherish ceaselessly.”
Clonan stated she saved up with Walker and Reddingius’s efforts in Cortina “religiously”, even with the unfavourable time zone.
“I believe one of many rounds was at 3am,” Clonan stated.
“So I set my alarm, awoke. I used to be rooting for them the entire time.
“I believe Bree most likely will go once more — she’s bought that absolute canine in her, so I’d be so eager to see how she goes.
“And perhaps at some point I am going to assist out with Bobsleigh,” Clonan added with a broad grin. “We’ll see.”
It isn’t such a far-fetched thought as you may suppose.
Kelsey Mitchell, who Clonan beat to gold on the 2022 Commonwealth Video games, made the swap to bobsleigh for the Milano-Cortina Video games, performing as brake-woman to Melissa Lotholz within the two-woman competitors and ending thirteenth, simply behind Walker and Reddingius’s best-ever end for an Australian bobsled crew in tenth.
Kelsey Mitchell, representing Canada on the pine in Paris, after which the ice in Cortina at consecutive Olympic Video games. (Getty Photographs: Jared C. Tilton and Ezra Shaw)
Mitchell made the transfer after ending eighth within the Paris Video games, taking Clonan’s sabbatical to the Nth diploma.
She is simply the 14th Canadian to compete at each Summer time and Winter Olympics — and informed Canadian broadcaster CTV Information that she desires to change again to biking for the 2028 LA Video games.
“Our sports activities are very comparable, so I believe that is form of what drew us collectively,” Clonan stated.
“We’re very huge, highly effective athletes, we carry loads within the fitness center … There’s a variety of crossover.
“However yeah, they’re implausible. All the things that they do is implausible, however to this point past what I may ever expertise in that adrenaline area.”
Potential bobsleigh aspirations apart, Clonan is absolutely targeted on the bike.
Victory with McCaig and Molly McGill on the Oceania monitor championships in Cambridge, New Zealand gave her a profitable return to worldwide competitors, permitting her to make use of the Nationwide Championships as an opportunity to experiment and rediscover her apparent velocity — she and her Queensland staff got here second within the staff dash earlier within the week, whereas a late sprint within the particular person keirin on Saturday evening was not sufficient for her to win a medal, ending in fourth place.
Kristina Clonan (left) simply left her cost too late as Alessia McCaig (proper) received the elite girls’s keiran ultimate. (Provided: AusCycling/Con Chronis)
“I am stoked to be again right here now, driving with the staff, staff dash particularly,” Clonan stated.
“We have modified my coaching, and I suppose if I’ve realized something, there are a variety of methods to pores and skin a cat.
‘[This week] We tried totally different positions [in the team sprint], which may be very atypical.
“It was really my first time driving P3 — I have been driving since I used to be 14, and at the moment was the primary day of driving P3 — so enjoyable to attempt one thing totally different, check the waters, see how the staff’s going, have a little bit of enjoyable.
“Now we have a variety of women who can experience in a variety of totally different positions. Being versatile and maintaining us on our toes is implausible for staff constructing.
“It implies that we’ll have a quicker staff if we will simply have extra individuals driving extra positions properly.
“So yeah, doing that, driving properly, and yeah, simply having enjoyable with it.”
The primary goal would be the Commonwealth Video games, hoping to return to the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, the place she claimed her first world championship medal — though Australia must get previous an enormously proficient English staff to take action.
England supplied the majority of the squads that received the gold medal in Paris and a silver medal on the 2025 World Championships, though of their world championship staff, three-time Olympic medallist and British star Emma Finucane rides for Wales, and Iona Moir for Scotland, thereby distributing the house nations’ energy considerably.
“I am actually excited for Comm Video games,” Clonan stated.
“We’re going again to Glasgow — I’d have cherished it to be in Melbourne, however we take what we will get.
“I am coaching like an absolute greyhound, so I am hoping to actually carry out there for myself and the staff. We’ll see how we go.”
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