Denmark engineer to GB rider - Bigham's Olympic rollercoaster

As acold arsenic Dan Bigham was concerned, nan doorway was shut.

Three years agone he was astatine nan Tokyo Olympics. He could person been location alongside his erstwhile Great Britain team-mates, tegument suit on, fresh to race. Instead, he was location not arsenic a rider, but arsenic a capacity technologist for Denmark.

He thought nan page had been turned connected his section arsenic a GB way cyclist. Told to take betwixt cycling and engineering, Bigham had opted for nan second - his biggest passion.

Yet now he is fine-tuning for different Olympic Games. And this time, successful Paris, he will beryllium taking to nan boards wearing nan red, achromatic and bluish of Team GB.

"If you'd said to maine astatine nan past Olympics you could triumph a badge astatine nan adjacent one, I'd beryllium for illustration 'I'm not moreover going to beryllium there'," Bigham, 32, told BBC Sport.

"It's astonishing what a fewer years tin bring. There person been times erstwhile I thought possibly I'm astatine a dormant extremity and possibly I should conscionable beryllium an engineer, possibly I should conscionable get a normal job.

"I've ever strived to link arsenic galore dots arsenic I can, support moving forward. It intends that I'm sitting present up of nan Paris Olympics. Two aliases 3 years ago, I wouldn't person moreover appreciated nan way that I would person taken to get here."

Bigham openly admits that he is an elite cyclist because he is an engineer.

With a Masters grade and a specialism successful aerodynamics, his profession started pinch nan Mercedes Formula 1 team. He now balances his on-track commitments pinch his engineering domiciled astatine roadworthy cycling squad Ineos Grenadiers.

He started cycling simply arsenic a quicker intends of getting to assemblage than nan bus, later joining and racing pinch cycling and triathlon clubs. But it was during his clip astatine Mercedes that he was encouraged to use his engineering to 2 wheels.

"Without engineering, I don't deliberation I'd beryllium successful nan sport, astatine slightest not to this level," Bigham said. "There has to beryllium thing successful nan athletics that really gets you up and that you're passionate about.

"For me, arsenic nerdy arsenic it is, it is nan exertion of maths, physics, engineering to nan sport. And that successful itself has meant that I've progressed to nan level that I'm at."

But his dual profession was not supported by everyone. By 2018, Bigham was connected nan Great Britain cycling squad but recovered he was nan quadrate peg successful a information hole. His ideas were rejected, his questioning met pinch resistance.

"Basically [a coach] said 'be a rider aliases an engineer, you can't do some and beryllium successful this system'," Bigham recalled.

"That was his ideological attack to being an athlete. For maine that was not a way I was consenting to spell down, to springiness up connected thing that meant truthful overmuch to me. So I went connected my merry way."

He was not rather prepared to springiness up cycling altogether, though, and group up a waste and acquisition team. Team Huub-Wattbike took nan way world by storm, regularly beating nations - including Great Britain - astatine way World Cups.

But specified was their success, successful 2019 nan UCI - cycling's world governing assemblage - changed its regulations to only let nations to compete astatine World Cups, thing which Team Huub-Wattbike said was "brutally destructive" and would "kill off", external nan beingness of waste and acquisition teams.

It was later that twelvemonth that Bigham approached Denmark, eager to stock his knowledge pinch a squad he felt were "leaving a batch connected nan array connected nan engineering side". If GB were not consenting to perceive to his ideas, nan Danes were each ears.

It paid disconnected too. At nan World Championships successful early 2020, Denmark group 3 successive world records to triumph men's squad pursuit golden successful Berlin, their clip successful nan last much than 5 seconds quicker than Team GB had gone successful winning Olympic golden 4 years earlier.

At nan Tokyo Olympics successful 2021, they won metallic - defeating GB successful a controversial semi-final.

"To spell to different federation and spot really they usability and really they tackle capacity was really helpful, but besides astatine nan aforesaid clip they enabled maine to train pinch their athletes," said Bigham.

"I was really connected nan way racing successful their men's squad pursuit squad and moreover successful their pre-Tokyo afloat dress rehearsal, I ended up riding successful nan A-team and was nan first British rider sub-3:50, evidently wholly unofficial, but I thought that was nan pinnacle of my career.

"We printed disconnected nan timing expanse and everyone successful nan velodrome signed it. That was a really poignant infinitesimal and I thought this is nan champion I will ever do successful squad pursuit."

Such was Bigham's shape aft his clip successful nan velodrome pinch nan Danish squad that successful September 2021, he collapsed nan men's British hr record, 1 time aft his now wife, British cyclist Joss Lowden, group a caller women's world hr record.

In 2022, he went to nan nationalist way championships and took 4 seconds disconnected nan British individual pursuit record, yet bigger things were to travel that twelvemonth when, pinch nan support of his Ineos Grenadiers employers, Bigham broke nan men's world hr record, riding 55.548km successful 60 minutes.

But 2022 was besides nan twelvemonth that nan doorway creaked backmost open. With a caller coach successful place, nan opportunity to return to nan British Cycling set-up arose.

"When I came backmost things were very different," he said. "Not conscionable from a unit perspective, but civilization perspective. It is very open-minded, a batch much progressive, a batch much consenting to person frank discussions astir performance, astir equipment, astir strategy.

"I'm ever coming up pinch caller ideas and it's bully to person different group to bounce those ideas astir with, and they do nan aforesaid pinch me, it's not conscionable a one-way thing. You consciousness respected and trusted, which is not what I had before."

Two years on, Bigham is now a world champion successful nan squad pursuit and a double European golden medallist connected nan track.

In Paris, he and his team-mates will activity to regain nan men's squad pursuit title mislaid successful Tokyo, pinch GB having dominated nan arena astatine nan erstwhile 3 Games.

Bigham ne'er thought becoming an Olympian would beryllium "an option". Now, pinch that doorway wide open, he is fresh to grasp nan opportunity.

"I conscionable want to spell location and win. Best shape of your life, champion instrumentality ever, nan highest-level title I will ever do," he said.

"I'm astir excited astir going connected way pinch 4 really bully mates and seeing really accelerated we tin ride, and seeing if we tin triumph an Olympic gold."