THE coaching exploits of Nowra’s Mark Fenner have continued at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, as one of his athletes Steele Von Hoff claimed gold in the men’s road race.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
While Fenner admits the gold medal to ‘one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet’ is the icing on the cake, the story of how Von Hoff got to that point is the real wheel-turner.
Fenner and the ‘Man of Steele’ first teamed up more than 10 years ago, when they were on the same racing team, Torq Performance Nutrition.
“From when I first raced against Steele, he showed plenty of talent, which led to him being picked up by Praties – a continental team in Australia, which was a proving ground many riders, such as Richie Porte and Chris Hamilton,” Fenner said.
“After a couple of stellar seasons on the road in Australia, Steele eventually made the move overseas.”
Von Hoff then joined professional team Garmin Sharp for two years in the World Tour, before joining NFTO Pro Cycling for a year in the United Kingdom.
Since then, he has been selected twice to represent Australia as part of the UniSA-Team and ONE Pro Cycling before joining Bennelong SwissWellness, in an attempt to get back on the world tour.
As such, Von Hoff, who had an on and off relationship with Fenner because of different team’s coaching guidelines, teamed back up with his mentor in October 2017.
“Steele had a stellar start to this racing season, claiming a silver at the national criterium while also winning a bunch sprint to finish eighth at the national road race,” Fenner said.
“He then produced strong results at both Tour Down Under and Herald Sun Tour – where he claimed the sprinters jersey.”
This form saw Von Hoff qualify for his first ever Commonwealth Games – which was announced just eight week before the event.
“The official announcement had been made that Tuesday morning, saying that Steele had made the Australian team for the Commonwealth Games,” Fenner said.
“Less than 12 hours later, that night, I got a call to say that he has crashed in Victoria and is in hospital with six fractured vertebrae.
“He went from being so chirpy to being in a neck brace.”
After the crash, Fenner admitted that ‘things didn’t look good’ but not all was lost.
“I spoke to the Australian selectors Simon Jones and Brad McGee and we agreed that we didn’t need to make a final decision of Steele just yet, as a review of his progress could be made a few weeks later,” he said.
One week after the accident, Von Hoff was using a recumbent bicycle – laying back while turning the legs over – which is critical for any road cyclist said Fenner.
“Usually a cyclist will do 25-30 hours of very structured training, but turning the legs over is vitally important in a situation like this if possible” he said.
“So at first, we got Steele to do two or three session short sessions a day with the recumbent bicycle, of about 30 minutes or as long as he could go until he started feeling pain.”
Two weeks after the accident, Fenner spoke with the doctors and they explained that ‘the way Steele hurt himself, there was no real threat of major spinal damage.’
With this good news, Von Hoff progressed to using a stationary trainer.
“We raised his handle bars, so not to put pressure on his back, allowing him to pedal in an upright position,” Fenner said.
“He again did this twice a day again governed by pain – if he started to ache or feel pain he stopped.
“At this stage, to be honest, he was progressing so well, we still held out hope he would be right for the games.”
Fenner passed these thoughts on the powers that be at Cycling Australia during a meeting between the doctors and selectors – alleviating any doubts that they had.
“Once you’re out of the game, you can lose that performance load pretty quickly, which is why we had him on the back on the bike ad soon was we could,” he said.
“This maintained his aerobic fitness is vitally important – the issue was going to be his sprinting power.
“As a sprinter and with the Commonwealth Games course having a significant hill in it, it was crucial that we got not only his sprint power back, but his top end aerobic power to make it over the climb each lap.”
Von Hoff knew this and four weeks post accident, he was sneaking out, with a back brace, and cycling on the road, after being ‘sick’ of being stationary.
“Once Steele got back on the road, he was producing solid numbers, making it look like more of a possibility that he would be right in time,” Fenner said.
It was at this point that Cycling Australia gave Fenner and a provisional okay for Von Hoff for the games.
“After developing more of a standard plan, we introduced sprint work by week six, a point where he had no pain,” Fenner said.
“We then got Steele into a couple of small local races, because we knew he was okay physically but didn’t know about him psychologically.
“Sprinters need to be fearless and aggressive, otherwise you can get knocked off the wheel.”
After these tests, Fenner did a power profile test on him, with Von Hoff continuing to tick every box put in front of him.
“It was at that point that I not only thought that he could compete at the games but actually medal,” Fenner said.
How right Fenner was.
Less than a fortnight later, the 30-year-old Von Hoff claimed gold in a time of 3:57:01.
“When Steele crossed the line for gold, I just lost it – I was so happy,” Fenner said.
“Both Simon [Jones] and Brad [McGee] then congratulated me – I was also very grateful to them both for having faith in Steele and helping him get to the finish line.
“It was a whirlwind two months with Steele and I couldn’t be happy.”
Fenner has had a number of accomplishments in cycling, coaching many riders now into the professional ranks, but he believes two of his top achieveiments have come with Von Hoff.
“When Steele was a Tour Down Under stage with UniSA, I was also over the moon,” he said.
“The gold medal is on par because I just love helping get athletes reach their full potential on two wheels.”
Von Hoff didn’t get to enjoy his gold medal for long though, heading to Europe to try and pick up another pro contract.