Devon Briggs has a message for the kids who used to bully him at primary school – who’s got the last laugh now?
Cambridge News 15 August 2024
The 20-year-old psychology student is in Paris about to compete at the Paralympics but good enough on the bike to consider one day trying out for the New Zealand Olympic Games men’s 4km team pursuit.
He sees some of those kids, and adults – who called him special needs and retarded – when he walks or cycles around Cambridge. Some have the good grace to apologise for the cruel words and taunts aimed at the boy whose club feet made him a target in the playground.
But from the moment Michael Van Enter saw him walking with a limp, he knew the 10-year-old would benefit from riding a bike.
Van Enter –the Riverside Adventures Bike Shop manager at the Velodrome – put him on a bike and on the track.
Devon Briggs
“We’ve never looked back really,” said Briggs who went on to take the para cycling world by storm culminating in his world-breaking performances at the world championships in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year.
He goes into the Paralympics a raging hot favourite when the track events begin on August 29 at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome in Montigny-le-Bretonneux, 42kms west of the Eiffel Tower.
He has been selected for four events – men’s C1-2-3 1km time trial and C3 team pursuit on the track and the C3 time trial and C1-2-3 road race.
Paralympian Devon Briggs and Waipā mayor Susan O’Regan do a whirl around the Velodrome track at the athlete celebration day. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
There are five sport classes for athletes who can use a standard bicycle, C1-C5, with the numbers showing the different impact of the impairment and activity limitation on the ability to ride a bicycle.
Briggs’ classification is C3 because of his impaired range of movement.
He lives with chronic pain.
“That’s just a part of life when I’m walking around or standing on my feet for too long. It’s unpleasant, but it’s bearable.
“I don’t get any pain from riding which is why I absolutely love it, it’s such an amazing thing for me that I’m able to do it with my disability.”
The years of operations on his feet are temporarily finished for now.
“There’s nothing planned in the next few years, it’s just a matter of if my feet deteriorate and depending on my pain levels, whether they increase or subside.”
He has had to build his Waikato University psychology studies around competition. He is taking his time with the papers.
Paralympian Devon Briggs on the Cambridge Velodrome track which is similar to the Paris track. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
“While I’m away I’ll focus on a little bit here and there when I can have time and it’ll just be a distraction for me.”
The psychology papers have helped him understand why people think the way they do and helps him overcome things in a certain situation.
His plan is to go on and become a sports performance psychologist, working with athletes like himself.
In Paris he will have a team of supporters with him – coach Damian Wiseman, his father John and mother – local potter Jo Beckett – and girlfriend Jaide Ede.
It will be the first time they get to see him racing overseas.
“It will be good to hug them all after racing. No matter what the result.”
Other Waipā athletes include Anna Taylor (Cambridge – para cycling) and Nicole Murray (Ōtorohanga – para cycling). They will be joined by Waipā-based team manager Brendon Cameron and physiotherapist Lauren Shelley.
Briggs has competed in Paris and on the velodrome before – two years ago at his maiden para-cycling track world championships when he won silver – describing it as very similar to the Cambridge track because they were designed and built by the same company to similar specifications and the same Siberian spruce pine wood.
“It’s a metre higher with a little more steepness in the banking so it’s going to be a really fast, hot track.”
There will be around 5000 people there in two storey high seating.
“It’s going to be an ecstatic atmosphere.”
Before the race, he feeds off the crowd but once it starts, he is all business.
“In the race, it’s head down, full gas. You actually don’t hear anything when you’re racing. Through our helmets, we just hear muffled noises, we don’t hear anything specific other than the coaches yelling out times. I stick to our race plan and follow process.”
Win or lose, Briggs knows he is ready.
“No matter what, I know I’ve put my heart and soul into this for the past three years. It’s been exhausting but we got there.”
Cycling has provided Briggs with the opportunity to advocate for people with a disability – to show those bullies in the playground that being disabled is not an obstacle to success.
“Hopefully I can help inspire others to use sport as a means to follow their dreams.”
Cy Co Coffee Cart’s Miriam Ellis with Paralympian Devon Briggs at the Waipā athlete celebration day. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
