Fraser passionate about giving back all she's learned

• Published date: 30 September 2022

You know you have given it plenty when the corrective surgery involves cutting into your stomach

Elyse Fraser went through that operation twice.

Iliac artery endofibrosis does not sound like a lot of fun, so let's start somewhere else - before her guts got sliced open.

In May 2017, Fraser (now 34) was at the start of her journey in some ways.

The Dunedin cyclist had taken a year out from her police work to chase her dreams.

She had been selected in the New Zealand track team that was heading to the United States for a month or two of racing and training.

Her focus was fixed on making the pursuit team for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and the even bigger dream was to ride for her country at the Tokyo Olympics.

The pursuiter was a promising rower in her early 20s, but she switched to cycling following a foot injury. And, as luck would have it, she crashed her bike.

Fraser, who had moved to Christchurch for work by then, went shopping for a new one and snapped herself up what she described as an excellent package deal — a boyfriend, a coach and a new bike.

The new bike came separately. The coach and boyfriend was just the one bloke — Andrew Williams.

He convinced her to try competing on the track and, under his guidance, she made steady progress.

That work paid off with her selection in the New Zealand squad.

"It was a really interesting time in the New Zealand squad. It did not all go to plan," Fraser said.

Injury and illness threw up a few barriers, as you expect in sport. But the culture of the women's programme had become "dysfunctional".

That is what a review into the sport found in 2018.

"I don't want to slam CNZ [Cycling New Zealand] because I know they've had a lot of bad press, but things have changed a lot since I was there and I was probably not looked after as well as possible," she said.

The year she spent trying to crack the pursuit team "was really tough".

"The culture in the women's squad when I was there — there was not a lot of work being done on it and it was pretty poor.

"I came into the squad as an older athlete and so I knew myself really well and my body really well and what it needed, and that probably was not recognised by the coaching team at the time.

"It took a long time to heal from that. Getting into coaching was probably quite a good way to feel like I was doing my part to make things better."

Fraser spent 18 months with the New Zealand team then spent a year in Belgium with a road team.

In 2020, she needed the first of two...