PP Feature - Kelly McGarry Obituary

Kelly McGarry – 1982-2016

Article of the Month (March 2016) by Chris Searle

A truly inspirational character from one of sports less trodden paths.

McGazza and the infamous Astro Van

For my first stab in the Perspective, I wanted to offer something a little different from the mix of traditional ball sports and prominent performers. I want to take you to a corner of the convoluted world of sport that is a little off the beaten track, and into the unknown, somewhere that doesn’t quite toe the line with the rest of its kind. Somewhere like Wakefield, near Nelson, New Zealand. That corner of sport is Freeride Mountain Biking, and here in Wakefield 34 years ago was born a man you’ve probably never heard of, but seems a shining beacon of what sport should be like in this often confused world of big money transfers and match fixing. Unfortunately such a man was cruelly taken from us a few weeks ago when he suffered a cardiac arrest while on his bike near his home town in New Zealand.

Kelly McGarry started off riding BMX but burst into the mountain bike world in 2006 when he entered Crankworx (one of the sport’s biggest and most infamous competitions) as an unknown youngster. He placed 18^th and from then on the bleached shaggy mane and large gangly frame were to become regular sights on the Freeride circuit. He was best known for his 9 consecutive appearances at Redbull Rampage, which many would describe as the pinnacle of the sport; or lunacy. His most famous single action was when during the 2013 incarnation of the event, he set a world record by flipping the 72 foot canyon gap, the biggest obstacle on the course. A sign that he had truly joined the class of mountain biking’s elite or simply that he had lost his marbles it doesn’t matter, for despite the sheer ridiculousness of this feat it didn’t define the man, and in fact is pretty insignificant when looking at his life as a whole.

Kelly flipping the Canyon gap for the third time of his life. This time less catastrophic and coming up short

Despite being key features in the life of ‘McGazza’, as he is affectionately known, there was so much more to him than eye-catching locks and a large pair, and this is what made him such a special person, as the whole of the wider mountain bike community will testify. During the weeks after his death the same words and phrases kept appearing, and these are the best way to fully understand the impact he made on the sport. “No matter who you were, he made you feel like you were”. “There was simply no one like him”. ‘For 'McGazza,’ writes Dirt magazine, ‘It was never about him. It was about whomever he was around, whether that was an influential industry insider or an unassuming fan on the side of a slopestyle course. He simply had time for everyone.’ This was typified by his decision last year to return to Nelson to mentor young riders;“If I can give something back to the kids, I’m gonna”. He will evidently be sorely missed by his “thousands of friends around the world”.

“He was a listener. He shared himself, for better or worse. He didn’t care what people thought, he was real.”

In researching for this article I had the fortune to type ‘Kelly Mcgarry life’ into Google. While Google offered that I may have meant death, it struck me that, although horribly clichéd, nothing sums this man up more perfectly than that one powerful word; Life.

While this short article cannot begin to do justice to the life of such an incredible character I hope it may serve to put the world of sport as we know it in 2016 into perspective. Maybe it would serve for some of our worshipped celebrity footballers to step back and take a look at their lives having read about Kelly. I suggest that it would be quite a humbling experience.