Madonna Harris

Madonna Harris

To person
Date of birth	15th August 1956
nation	New Zealand
discipline	Road / train
End of career	1990
Most important successes
UCI track world championships 1990 - Individual pursuit
Last updated: September 10, 2018

Madonna Harris , née Madonna Gilchrist , MBE (born August 15, 1956 in Hamilton ) is a New Zealand entrepreneur and former athlete. Along with Christopher Nicholson, she is one of two New Zealanders who took part in both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

Career

Madonna Harris is one of New Zealand's most versatile female athletes. In 1977 and 1978 she played in the New Zealand national basketball team and was a member of the national athletics team . In 1977, she competed for her country at the Pacific Conference Games in Canberra over 400 meters hurdles . She was also the Waikato pentathlon champion .

In 1978 Harris went to the United States with scholarships in athletics and basketball at Utah State University , where he married the ski instructor John Harris three years later. As a result, she became a ski instructor herself and began to compete in cross-country skiing . At the same time she played soccer for Utah and started triathlon . At the age of 28, she slipped while jogging on ice, trained on the bike in the weeks that followed and became enthusiastic about cycling .

In 1986 and 1987 Madonna Harris competed in road world championships . Also in 1987 she was fifth in the single pursuit at the World Railroad Championships .

Since Harris had been living in the United States for ten years at the time, her name was virtually unknown in New Zealand. That changed, however, when they at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary on 20-kilometer cross-country participated, even if they took place only 40th In the same year she went in the Summer Olympic Games in Seoul in the road race at the start, but that they could not go to the end because of several tire failures. In 1989 she finished fifth at the road world championships, at the same time she held several New Zealand championship titles on the road and track . At the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland , she won gold in the single pursuit on the track and was fourth in the road race. At the rail world championships in Maebashi , Japan , she was runner-up in the single pursuit behind the multiple world champion from the Netherlands , Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel .

Also in 1990 Madonna Harris met Paul Jeffrey, her future partner. The couple successfully started a herbal cosmetics company.

Harris and Jeffrey turned to endurance riding in their sporting activities , and Madonna Harris participated in international competitions. In 2010 she took third place in the Mongol Derby , a distance ride over 1000 kilometers through Mongolia , in which 16 riders took part.

Honors

In 1990 Madonna Harris was awarded the Order of the British Empire .

Cycling successes

1989

• New Zealand Champion - Road Race

1990

• World Championship - Individual Pursuit

Web links

• Madonna Harris in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Madonna Harris in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Logan Savory: Hamish Bond joins New Zealand's elite sporting code hoppers. In: stuff.co.nz. Accessed September 10, 2018 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Madonna Harris - Biography. In: New Zealand Olympic Committee. February 18, 2016, accessed April 20, 2016 . 
3. ↑ About Nature's Kiss. In: Nature's Kiss. Accessed April 21, 2016 . 
4. ↑ Kiwi rider leads the field. In: stuff.co.nz. August 9, 2010, accessed April 21, 2016 .