5 minute read
TQ Magazine - Due Drop Challenge is Rick Wells' toughest - and most important - triathlon yet
by TQ.kiwi
Rick Wells has embarked on his toughest triathlon challenge yet and is happy to chart his own mental health battles along the way to help reverse NZ’s shocking teenage suicide statistics. It’s a cautionary tale for today’s young Kiwi triathletes, as Kent Gray discovers.
Rick Wells was on top of the world, a freestyler fast enough to swim for New Zealand at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games before transitioning to become a pioneer of a new sport called triathlon.
Unofficial world short and long course titles made the Aucklander a global name the same year the All Blacks won the inaugural Rugby World Cup, a year before his sole Kona start and ultimate DNF after pulling the pin during the marathon at the 1988 Ironman World Championship. “I wasn’t tough enough mentally,” he revealed years later, rather poignantly in modern day retrospect. More on the inspirational Due Drop Challenge shortly.
When the first official ITU World Championships were staged in Avignon, France, in 1989, Wells snared the bronze medal behind legendary American Mark Allen and Brit Glen Cook and went one place better in 1991 when Miles Stewart won on home Gold Coast soil.
More seasoned readers will remember a splendidly ‘tached Wells as the face of the 1980s Moro bar advert - “New Zealand’s favourite bar by far”- and as a willing ambassador for Kiwi Lager. “My two main sponsors…perfect for a bloke in his mid-20s.”
Some may even recall the Auckland City Tri Club life member on the cover of the Jan./Feb. 1988 edition of New Zealand Triathlete magazine with a coverline that summed up the exterior view: “Rick WellsLife in the fast lane.”
What happened next? Well, nothing, as it turned out. The phone stopped ringing, the sponsorships dried up, the reality of retirement slowly sunk in. So too did depression.
“Part of it was my own fault with no real future planning. You’re sort of riding a wave and you think you’re going to ride that wave forever and then suddenly it’s over,” Wells said.
“For me personally, I probably wasted two or three years trying to find something to do. To put it bluntly, you’re used to being popular, back then you had answer machines, there’d always be 10 or 15 messages on your machine, you know, come here, do this, invited to this and that and then it’s all over, the sponsors are all pulling out and you sort of come back to earth with a bit of a bump.”
Did you suffer from depression? “Totally,” Wells, now 61, told TQ.
Wells’ story is a cautionary tale he’s taking all the way from the iconic lighthouse at Cape Reinga to the Beehive in Wellington on the Due Drop Challenge with, among others, former All Black Ian “Kamo Kid” Jones. The final, agonising steps of the 2000km+ swim, bike and run relay down the entire eastern coast of the North Island will morph into a hīkoi to Parliament led by I Am Hope and Gumboot Friday founder Mike King, perhaps the most courageous Due Dropper of them all.
“You’re used to being in the limelight and suddenly you’re no use to anyone.”
“We’ve got one of the leading statistics of teenage suicide in the world, that’s tragic,” Wells continued. “This is why we’re putting ourselves through a bit of pain. Like, pain comes and goes where as suicide is final.”
Wells knows the latter from painful personal experience.
“A close triathlon mate of mine committed suicide and it was tragic, it really bowls you over because it is final. There’s no oops, made a mistake there and we’ll repair that. You’re done.
“The Due Drop Challenge, we’re, A, trying to start a conversation but also raise awareness that there is free U25 counselling available right now so for anyone, get out there and start talking to somebody.”
Wells hopes the groundswell of support already generated by the most daring Gumboot Friday initiative to date will force the Government into tangible action.
“You kind of hope so this time. Basically what we’re hoping is that we’ve started a conversation, the community has spoken [and said] this is unacceptable, there needs to be a proper course of action. Whatever it was, they spent 1.5 billion on mental health and they can’t really show what it went on. That’s a shocking statistic, a shocking amount of money to say we spent this but we don’t actually know what it was spent on.”
Follow Wells and the Due Drop Challenge team at gumbootfriday.org.nz
DUE DROP CHALLENGE
What: Swim, bike, run relay from Cape Reinga to The Beehive
When: 16 days from April 11
Who: Ian Jones, Rick Wells, David Mitchell, Richard Hart, Karim Rostami, Geoff Everson, Mike King, Richie Barnett
Why? Funds and awareness raiser for youth mental health
How can I help? Visit the Due Drop Challenge Givealittle page or text 'BOOTS' to 469 to make an automatic $3 donation.
