Paul Brydon was born in Christchurch in 1951, but grew up in Rangiora, attending Rangiora High School. When he was only 20 when he was chosen to ride in the pioneering New Zealand 4000m team pursuit at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He was a member of the strong Papanui club and had come under the expert coaching eye of Wayne Thorpe.

Munich was the first Olympics in which New Zealand fielded a pursuit team. It comprised Brydon, Neil Lyster, John Dean and Blair Stockwell. In the qualifying round, the New Zealanders were clocked at 4min 35.11s, not quick to advance to the quarter-finals, and 14th overall. They rode well, considering at that time New Zealand was still learning about the team pursuit, and they recorded their fastest time in that ride in Munich.

Brydon also started in the gruelling road race, filling in for Brent Pascoe, who’d broken his collarbone. New Zealanders recall that race in Munich for the farcical ending when Bruce Biddle was edged out of the top three in a sprint finish. Later, the third place-getter, Jaime Huélamo of Spain, failed a drugs test. That would ordinarily have meant promotion to the bronze medal position for Biddle. But that never happened. He came third but received no medal.

He’d offered after the race to do a drugs test and was told it was not necessary. Then he was denied his medal because he had not done a drugs test! Decades of lobbying by the New Zealand Olympic Committee have not resulted in a satisfactory resolution of this absurd situation.

Riding back in the pack, Brydon was oblivious to all the drama at the front. “I only started to help out the road racers, not that they needed much help, as it turned out.” He eventually finished 50th, 2min 32s behind the winner, Hennie Kuiper of the Netherlands, who was timed at 4h 14min 37s. Brydon’s was a solid effort considering there were 134 starters in the road race.

Brydon stayed on in Europe for a year after Munich. He headed to England, where he worked at Selfridges for three months, and did what riding he could. Then he moved to Holland for nine months, racing in local criteriums and even hooking up with some Australian cyclists and riding some of the bigger tours further south.

The next stop on the international calendar for Brydon was the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games, where he, Stockwell, Russell Nant and René Heyde rose to the occasion and came away with a bronze medal in the team pursuit.

In their first ride, they qualified second fastest with 4min 50.40s. Despite having gone more than three seconds faster than Australia in their heat, the New Zealanders lost their semi-final to Australia and were timed at a disappointing 4min 58.05s. New Zealand made a false start, which was not recalled as they’d expected it to be, and Australia rode smoothly into the final.

However, in the ride-off for the bronze it all came together well and the New Zealanders swept to victory in 4min 45.90s, beating Scotland by 12 seconds.

Brydon also rode well in the 10-mile scratch race and was only denied a medal after a furious sprint in a blanket finish. He was 6th, the leading New Zealander, in a time of 20min 51.78, just half a second behind the winner, Englishman Stephen Heffernan.

Brydon retired soon after the Christchurch Commonwealth Games. “It was probably too early, but in those days you had to get on and earn a living.”

He has remained in Rangiora. “I started in business, painting and decorating, and after a while I had guys working for me. There was some work with glass involved too. Eventually I took over the glass side of the business and gave away the painting.” These days Brydon owns Rangiora Mirror and Glass.

Paul Brydon

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