Making the world’s top 20 and riding for a living has been a dream of Yackandandah’s Oliver Zwar for quite some time.
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The downhill mountain bike specialist flew out to Rotorua, New Zealand, on Monday morning to compete in the Crankworx Downhill event for the first time.
Joined by his brother Ben, Zwar is hoping a to push for a top 15 finish and kick off a busy season touring the world in style.
Practice starts on Thursday for the Saturday race.
“It’s going to have pretty much all the top riders from the World Cup there,” Zwar said.
“It will be pretty good to see where I’m at and see what I need to improve on.
“I want to be up there, ideally the top 15 would be my ultimate goal and if I did that I’d be very, very happy.
“I raced the Canadian leg of the series four years ago when I was quite young and this my first time racing in Crankworx at Rotorua.”
Zwar had a difficult start to the Australian mountain bike season where he battled illness, before rounding it out with a pair of sixth place finishes at events in Mount Beauty and Thredbo.
He had also planned to compete in the national championships on the Gold Coast and even checked his bags in at the airport before receiving the news the event had been cancelled due to bad weather.
In the preparation for the New Zealand trip, Zwar and his younger brother reached out to some old sponsors and unofficially started the Zwar Brothers Racing Team.
“It’s really good to have him with me and it’s good to see him doing well,” he said.
“He represented Australia last season and finished third in the national championships.”
The 21-year-old has been able to focus more on training than ever before, due to a more manageable work schedule, which he said has been very beneficial.
Zwar admits downhill mountain bike racing is ultimately about trying to stay very composed.
“There’s a fine line between going too hard and crashing and not going fast enough and being very slow,” he said.
“You’ve just got to find that balance in practice and sustain it from top to bottom.
“The course is about five minutes long, but it’s an absolute grind for five minutes.
“Your heart rate is through the roof and you get to the bottom and you can hardly stand because you’re legs are so smashed.”
Mountain bike racing is a sport which doesn’t receive much financial support outside the elite level, meaning Zwar is forced to fund his own way to top events.
“I want to chase that dream and hopefully one day it can be a job,” he said.
“The World Cup is the pinnacle of the sport, but if you’re in the top 20 overall, you get paid to ride, so that’s the dream.”