One of New Zealand’s most high-profile Para cycling athletes, Devon hopes to continue his sporting journey fuelled by his passion for the sport and a desire to make a difference.
Born with Bliateral Talipes (club feet), Devon was bullied at school but never let that his disability dissuade from giving sport a go. He tried hockey, martial arts, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis in his youth before checking out cycling at the local velodrome – just 3km from his home – as a ten-year-old boy and was instantly hooked.
“From my first time at the track I absolutely loved it,” he explains. “Cycling gave me a sense of freedom I’d never experienced before, and it gave me the confidence to be myself. It has opened so many doors.”
In 2022 he competed at his maiden Para-Cycling Track World Championships in Paris and enjoyed a breakout performance with silver in the Men’s C4 1km Time Trial and silver in the C4 Omnium. His podium finish in the former event, where he placed behind multiple-winning Paralympic great Jody Cundy of Great Britain and one position ahead of Slovakian three-time Paralympic champion Josef Metelka, was a performance of huge significance.
“I realised by finishing up with those guys that if I carried on then one day I could emulate them,” he says.
At the 2023 World Championships in Glasgow, Devon harvested four bronze medals in the C3 1km Time Trial, Individual Pursuit, Scratch Race and Omnium to gain more confidence of his ability to deliver on the global stage.
At the 2024 Para-Cycling Track World Championships in Rio, Devon enjoyed the best competition of his career so far. In the Men’s C3 1km Time Trial he blitzed to a gold medal in a world record mark of 1:05.259 and took Men’s C3 Omnium silver and Men’s C3 Individual Pursuit bronze.
“I knew I wanted to go to Paris (2024 Paralympic Games) as a world champion and it was something my team and I really strived for. Winning gold (in Rio) gave me a big confident boost.”
Sustaining a fractured sacrum and dislocated coccyx in a training accident just prior to the Paris Paralympic Games he still bravely competed in pain in the French capital. Despite this, he finished fifth in the Men’s C3 3000m Individual Pursuit – just 0.077 shy of a ride-off for the bronze medal – and seventh in the Men’s C1-3 1000m Time Trial.
A psychology student at the University of Waikato, Devon hopes to pursue his pilot’s licence in future.
“Cycling is a way for me to tell my story but also be an advocate for people with a disability,” he explains. “Hopefully I can help inspire others to use sport as a means to follow their dreams.”
