Nathan Earle (SVC 2003-04)
Congratulations to Nathan Earle (SVC 2003-04) in winning the 2022 Tour of Japan. The tour covered 418 km over four stages with a starting list of 79 riders. Nathan won the first stage, was second in Stage 2, and was 15th in the final stage although he came in with the leading group and was thus accredited with the same time.
In 2017 Nathan was second in this tour.
Nathan followed this victory up with another in the 323km / 3 day Tour de Kumano. He finished second in the first two stages but was credited with the same time in each instance as the winner. In Stage 3 he was 10th with a penalty of only 7 seconds sufficient to give him the overall victory.
Nathan was previously featured in the November 2020 edition of OVAtions where we recorded that in October he had completed the equivalent of pedalling up Mt Everest (8 848m)! He rode 47 laps of a 1.38 km stretch with a 188m of altitude gain averaging 13.6% in the foothills of Mount Wellington to reach the Everest equivalent.
He decided to take on the challenge because he was unable to compete internationally because of COVID-19.
Nathan completed the journey in seven hours twelve minutes – more than fifteen minutes faster than his predicted time. His time is the third fastest in the world for this extraordinary challenge.
A beneficiary of Nathan’s efforts was the Migrant Resource Centre to the tune of nearly $4000. Nathan was accompanied on the much of the ride by nationally ranked mountain biker and fellow Old Virgilian, Ben Bradley (SVC 2008-11).
Photo credit: Alamy
