7 minute read
TQ Cover Story - The rise and rise of Jack Moody
by TQ.kiwi
From Wanaka to Alpe D’Huez and destinations beyond, Jack Moody intends racing on to a slightly different beat.
By Kent Gray
AT 64KG DRIPPING WET, JACK MOODY is the caretaker of a physique you might find filling out an extra small World Tour team jersey, a dancer on two wheels summiting hors catégorie climbs like they’re a sector of pancake flat pavé. It’s little wonder, then, that cycling is an enduring first sporting love.
He’s 5ft 10in, or 178cm in new money, a smidgeon taller perhaps with cleats on. Maybe even “180 if I style that mop on my head into a Mohawk.”
The understated humour comes standard and by his own admission, there’s a hint of small man syndrome lurking within too. That’s the result of being underestimated throughout his secondary schooling where Moody transformed himself from a Arrière du peloton presence on Auckland Grammar’s mountain bike and road cycling teams into a whippet on the track, quick enough to give the national schoolboys steeplechase record a scare.
“That’s probably the best summary of my career in sport, definitely a grinder, no natural talent,” the 29-year-old says. “It very rare I’d ever get called the favourite, it was always the underdog mentality which I love. It means it’s a point to prove.
“Maybe it’s a smaller guy [thing] or less to me in terms of a presence, and fairly quiet in terms of what I exude outwards, but it’s nice going into race day knowing that you can just turn it on.”
Turn it on Moody has in the past year. Victory at Ironman 70.3 New Zealand in December was his fourth podium of 2022. He’s started 2023 rather well too, 3rd at the Tauranga Half a prelude to victory at February’s Challenge Wānaka half. Small of stature yes, large of heart, lungs and fight most definitely.
Moody is part of the new breed being pushed to superhuman levels by the extraordinary deeds of Gustav Iden, Kristian Blummenfelt, Sam Laidlow and co. Domestically, only Braden Currie and Kyle Smith rank above him on the PTO pecking order and yes, they’re in his crosshairs too.
Moody thought he might of had a chance of tipping up Currie at the Tauranga Half on January 21. What he hadn’t anticipated was the Wanaka man knocking out a course record time of 3:37:47.
Currie’s big hurry and an eventual bronze medal behind Cantabrian Mike Phillips, a bloke
Moody overcame a crash on the bike to win Challenge Wanaka
Moody had put seven minutes on in Taupo a month earlier, was a moment of refreshing clarity.
“It didn’t really mean you had to go home and lick your wounds, it was just an awesome week of training after that, sort of head down, bum up and there’s always another race to do. If you get defeated by one race, you’re not really doing the sport for the right reasons I reckon.”
That overarching motive for Moody? To see how far he can go in the sport, both in terms of results and air miles. Like those human targets, Moody also has a list of iconic races he wants to tick off around the world.
This year that will likely include August’s 70.3 Worlds in Finland and before that in July, the Alpe D’Huez L Triathlon, ‘the legend’ with it’s mythical climb up the 21 bends of the fabled French mountain.
“I wouldn’t say it was the reason I got into the sport but ever since I’ve been involved, it’s one I’ve always looked at, just loving cycling so much, it’s just such an enjoyable sport to watch on TV and read about. To go and ride Alpe D’Huez seems like kind of a bucket list ride and if I can work out a way to get the road bike over there instead of the TT bike, maybe we’ll give it a nudge.”
Moody had more home-spun races to get stuck into first though, starting with the Xterra cross tri in Rotorua. Thereafter, the Tineli Volcanic Epic - a unique four-day mountain bike stage race across 200km of Rotorua, Taupo and Tokoroa’s finest geothermal and forest trails beckoned. Moody could possibly even return to the Hawke’s Bay Half Marathon where he holds the course record of 1:07:12 before jetting to Europe.
The 29-year-old completed Challenge Wanaka’s 21.2km run in 1:18:32. He looked fresh but don’t be fooled. “That’s the hardest run I’ve ever done.”
THE STORY BEHIND OUR COVER
You might be picking up a theme here. For sure, Moody is focused on 70.3 and the lucrative PTO 100km racing (he finished 30th at the PTO Canadian Open in July). But he’s also into race diversity to keep things fresh.
Indeed, you could safely surmise that Moody moves to a different beat, House music for a memorable period as it turns out. That chapter in his life, and the catalyst for the inaugural cover of TQ, has its roots at the University of Canterbury where Moody studied engineering.
He had left Auckland Grammar with hopes of a running scholarship to the U.S. and preserved with that dream for the first semester before the parties starting making waking up for Saturday morning training and races harder and harder. Before he knew it, Moody and a pal found themselves as the closing act at UC’s famed end of lectures ‘Tea Party’.
“I probably shouldn’t be saying this but the first set of course-related costs went on a set of DJ decks and I think the second set did as well. I told myself they’re an investment and they’d pay for themselves…lucky that [gamble] actually paid off.”
Cue a crazy few months DJ-ing in the French ski resort of Les Deux Alpes after he’d graduated.
“Spent a few months over there, skied days, DJ six nights a week I think it was, something ludicrous, and then came back home. I wasn’t burnt out from it but there is only so much French House that you wanted to play.”
Moody resumed running on his return to Auckland and within a year had signed up for his first triathlon, Rotorua.Suffer. Five-time world champion and 2012 Olympic silver medallist Javier Gomez Noya won while Moody did exactly what it said on the tin, suffer. He was also hooked.
Moody's 3:58:01 effort at Challenge Wanaka was just shy of Javier Gomez Noya’s 2018 course record time of 3:57:27
On the day of our cover shoot, Moody hammed up a bit more pain for the camera but the music playing on the TV screen front and centre of his pain cave was no artifical prop. Indeed, music has helped make Moody the athlete he is, “one of triathlon’s most exciting prospects” as his PTO bio trumpets.
“I’d always loved music and coming from running, they always talk about this cadence of 175. All I ever listened too for a long time was drum and base which is 175, and when I was un-coached for a period, I was always running at about 175 heart rate as well, it was full noise until you couldn’t anymore. It meant the runs were short [laughs].”
Thankfully, coach Bevan McKinnon has Moody on a much, ahem, shorter leash nowadays. The training runs might be longer and slower but one constant remains. Never, ever underestimate Jack Moody.
