Hayden Norris: The thrill of the chase
Hayden Norris might be targeting glory on the track at the Commonwealth Games but it was the trails of Cannock Chase where his love affair with cycling first blossomed.
Almost from the moment he learned to ride, Saturday and Sunday mornings meant only one thing as Norris and dad Michael would make the short journey from their Stafford home for another biking adventure.
“We’d go out every weekend on the Chase,” he explains. “I was only about four or five-years-old and had a small, red Gary Fisher mountain bike. I fell off plenty but would just get right back on and hit it again.
“When you are young every ride is an adventure. That is where I fell in love with cycling.”
Norris’ enduring passion for mountain biking is such that he will be present on the Chase next week as a spectator when it hosts the Games’ event next Tuesday.
Yet it is on the track where the 19-year-old's talent has soared and his sole focus for the coming days is on London’s Lee Valley Velodrome, where he will compete in the one-kilometre time trial and keiren events (
Having started racing on the road as a youngster with Lichfield City Cycling Club, Norris was a relative latecomer to the track but his ability quickly became clear.
“I was 15 when I had my first track races but with very little experience I found myself able to win races against people who had been doing it for years,” he says. “I started concentrating more where my talents lay and started to realise I was quite decent.”
The arrival of the pandemic proved another key moment. Despite being deprived of competition for the best part of a year, Norris threw himself into training. By the time lockdown was lifted, he’d been called up to the national squad. A regular at World Cup meetings during the early part of the year, the “shoot for the stars” dream of being part of Birmingham 2022 became a reality.
“I had just finished school in March 2020 when the pandemic hit and through the lockdowns I came on such a long way with my cycling,” explains the former Walton High student.
“It was difficult because there was no racing but for me it was perfect in that I had six to eight months where I could just get my head down training, without worrying about anything else.
“I was in a position where I could get a trial with the national team and at the end of that put down a time which meant I got a full-time membership.
“Since I got on the Olympic programme a year ago I haven’t really missed a big race. I have jumped from one to the next, at a faster rate than I ever thought I could. I knew I was in with a shout of being selected for the Games but you never know for sure, those things can go either way. There is a huge sense of pride at being chosen.”
Norris’ long-term ambitions stretch far beyond the Commonwealths toward the Olympics with Paris 2024 a possible target and Los Angeles 2028 very much so. In that regard he could hardly ask for a better mentor than Jason Kenny, Britain’s most decorated Olympian who is now GB men’s sprint coach.
Norris chuckles when he recalls first meeting Kenny aged eight having travelled away with dad Michael, then a mechanic for the national team.
“I was sat in the mechanics workshop and Jason came down,” he says. “Him, Chris Hoy and Jason Queally, three legends of the sport and all Olympic champions.
“I was sat there in awe. I shook his hand and I didn’t want to wash it for a year!
“I used to watch him compete and wonder if I could ever do the same. Now, to be brushing shoulders with him every day, sometimes you have to take a step back to realise how surreal that is and how far I have come.”
Norris is relishing the prospect of competing in front of a sold-out home crowd but if there is one slight disappointment, it is the fact track cycling takes place so far away from the Midlands. He is one of more than 8,500 to have signed a petition calling for a velodrome to be built in the region as a legacy to the Games.
“It would have been great to be competing in Birmingham but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. Hopefully, one day there will be a velodrome,” he says.
“It would be great to see more indoor velodromes, or even more outdoor ones. The more exposure kids have to track cycling the better it will be for the sport.
“I was lucky because my family were into cycling. The more velodromes there are, the more kids are going to start track cycling and more people will find out whether they are talented or not. The talent pool is going to grow and it is only going to be good for British Cycling.
“I’m pretty confident there will be a pretty mega atmosphere in the velodrome. When you have a home crowd behind you, you can find that little extra per cent. I am just looking forward to leaving it all out there and showing the home crowd what I can do.”
