Eddie Dawkins

EVENTS: Cycling - Track

Track cyclist Eddie Dawkins, born in Invercargill in 1989, was in the vanguard of New Zealand's emergence as a formidable sprint powerhouse.

Dawkins competed at two Olympic Games (London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016) and three Commonwealth Games (Delhi 2010), Glasgow (2014) and Gold Cost (2018) and finished with one silver medal at the Olympics and two golds, two silvers and three bronzes at the Commonwealth Games – a tribute to his longevity and quality.

He first came to attention at Delhi in 2010 when, having just turned 21, he won a silver medal in the team sprint with Ethan Mitchell and Sam Webster (foretelling future greatness for this trio), bronze in the men's 1km time trial and was fourth in the individual sprint, losing the bronze to team-mate Webster after they rode off for third. It was obvious a rare talent had emerged.

At the 2012 London Olympics, he finished well down the field in the men’s sprint but was part of a strong New Zealand sprint team - along with Mitchell and Simon van Velthooven – who finished fifth in a 10-strong field.

On to the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, where he won bronze in the individual sprint (when Webster won the gold), gold in the team sprint, along with Mitchell and Webster, and was sixth of 27 starters in the keirin.

At Rio in 2016, the trusty sprint team of Dawkins, Mitchell and Wester took the silver medal behind Britain. Dawson finished in the middle of the field in the keirin and individual sprint.

On the Gold Coast in 2018, Dawkins, Mitchell and Webster showed their class by successfully defending their team sprint title. Dawkins added a hard-fought bronze in the keirin and silver behind Australian speedster Matthew Glaetzer in the 1km time trial. He had a particularly heavy schedule on the Gold Coast and was sixth in the men’s sprint as well.

Dawkins wasn’t just an outstanding track cyclist at Games time. His record at world championships was also first-class. For decades New Zealand struggled to win a medal at the world champs. Dawkins won eight!

In the 2010 world championship team sprint, he teamed with Webster and Adam Stewart and they missed a spot in the semi-finals by one place, finishing fifth at Ballerup, Denmark. The following year, the crack lineup of Dawkins, Mitchell and Webster hinted at what was to come by finishing sixth (subsequently promoted to fifth after a drugs disqualification) at Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, again just missing a berth in the semis. They won bronze in Melbourne in 2012, silver in Minsk, Belarus, in 2013, gold in Cali, Colombia, in 2014, silver in Yvelines, France, in 2015, and gold at London in 2016 and Hong Kong in 2017. They were sixth at Apeldoorn in 2018. At Pruszków, Poland in 2019, they were third in qualifying but then slipped to eighth overall.

In their last world championship effort, in Berlin in 2020, the New Zealanders closed out a wonderful decade of achievement for one of New Zealand’s great, if slightly under-rated, teams with a seventh placing.

Dawkins also added world championship silver in the keirin in 2015 and 2016.

He retired from professional cycling in 2020, and took up powerlifting. In 2022, aged 33, he finished third in men’s open 105kg category at the Commonwealth powerlifting championships in Auckland, lifting a total 762kg across the three disciplines - squat, deadlift and bench press. He retired when he found his new sport was taking too big a toll on his body.

Dawkins, Mitchell and Webster were twice finalists in the Team section at the Halberg Awards.

In 2023, the lounge at Stadium Southland was renamed Eddie Dawkins Champions Lounge during a ceremony to celebrate his glittering cycling career.

Dawkins and his wife Alysha have two children.