For a bloke who didn't have a ''normal'' job until he was 31, Nathan Rennie has done okay – and now he's happy to share the knowledge that took him global.
The downhill mountain biking world champion is using his experience to guide the next generation of athletes in the Illawarra – and not just for those on two wheels.
Nathan’s Victory Lab is an athlete management company dedicated to helping up-and-comers navigate the complexities of their sporting careers.
“I’ve done the full circle, from doing okay in Australia and realising that you can’t really have a full-paid career here, to downhill mountain biking becoming much more popular now, and it’s hard to get yourself out there,” Nathan says.
“Parents see ‘extreme sport’ and they think ‘danger’, but at the end of the day you’re more likely to get hurt playing soccer. With the right environment and a good group of friends, mountain biking is very safe.”
Nathan offers coaching and training for all levels and abilities, from beginner to elite and semi-professional mountain bikers. He hosts skills workshops and skills development sessions on all trails, from green to double black diamond, in groups or private sessions. He also offers one-on-one mentoring for athletes navigating a professional career.
“The Victory Lab isn’t a one-size-fits-all model. It can be tailored to the needs of a specific individual. It’s capable of opening to all sports. I’m most famous for mountain biking, but we can guide other sports because the principles are the same if you’re trying to navigate a career in it.”
Nathan grew up learning his craft in the Blue Mountains, where a friend encouraged him to ride competitively in his early teens. At 16, he entered his first world championships. In 1999, he became junior downhill world champion. At 17, he travelled to California for his first race season, and began to get a taste of life as a pro athlete.
“My first race season over in California, I got paid nothing,'' he says. ''We pretty much relied on prize money to keep going. Our budget was tight – we had a 7-Eleven across the road. A hot dog for $1.70 – that was lunch.”
Nathan’s career continued for more than a decade – he travelled the world representing Australia and his sponsors included Red Bull, Santa Cruz, Troy Lee and Cannondale Bikes. In 2020, he was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, and he holds the world record for performing a 123-foot jump in Coober Pedy.
“There’s a lot of unrecognised talent in Australia,'' he says. ''We went over there and basically stole the show. At one point, there was an Australian on every spot on the podium. For a while, I lived a really spoiled lifestyle – I had my own mechanic, free jerseys, sandwiches coming from every direction, my only job was to ride and race and try to win.”
Nathan’s career helped pave the way for sponsorship models today. “We educated Red Bull on the need for co-sponsors in sports without a Formula 1 budget,” he says.
Now he uses his personal experience and industry know-how to help budding athletes understand the process of earning money through their sport and negotiating sponsorships.
“People think ‘okay, I won this race, where’s all the money and fame?’ and people don’t realise that’s not how it works. In every sport, you have to go to them [brands and sponsors]. You have to bring something to the table,” Nathan says.
“You don’t necessarily have to be winning, either. It helps, but at the same time, if you’re good at getting exposure, talking with people and getting their brand out there, that’s how you get sponsors. You have to go to them. You have to make their job easy, you can’t just sit back, you have to talk to the newspapers, go to the magazines, talk yourself up and sell yourself.”
The Victory Lab can offer help with navigating contracts, media training, personal branding and social media management. Nathan also delivers online info sessions focusing on soft skills, such as coping with pressure, confidence building and etiquette, to give athletes the best opportunity to go pro without the hassles.
“Victory Lab can help up-and-coming athletes to navigate all of that. But you don’t have to be striving to be at the top like that, you might just want to enjoy yourself, get better at what you’re doing and learn some skills like how to manual, how to jump, proper bike set-up, bike maintenance and how to take pride in your possession,” Nathan says.
In term four, The Victory Lab plans to introduce a mountain bike program for kids, offered on a weekly basis similar to soccer programs.
“I’m looking into accepting Active Kids vouchers because that will help make it more accessible. The scene in Wollongong is bigger than people even realise, so there’s a huge need for a program like this but no one’s doing it yet. We still don’t have a proper trail network open… But there is the Cringila Mountain Bike Park, we can do some stuff there.”
Nathan is also looking at providing post-retirement support for elite athletes to help them transition “back to normal life”, which many, including Nathan, found difficult.
“I didn’t have a normal job until I was 31. And a lot of the other athletes don’t finish high school, because they go into their chosen sport from a very young age and that’s what they’re concentrating on,” Nathan says.
“That’s one of the things I also push with Victory Lab. They should finish school first, so that they have a plan B. Education is one of the biggest things in life, and you should be doing it regardless.”
The Victory Lab will launch a clothing line, in partnership with Atlantis, a well-known visual artist from far north Queensland. The designs will pay homage to the famous Troy Lee Vagus Kit, with colourful, eye-catching styles.
“There’s been a huge change, and particularly in the jerseys and race kits that people wear in mountain biking. It suddenly became beige,” Nathan says.
“You don’t know what team they're on, you can’t see their sponsors properly, so we’re bringing back the old retro, eye-catching style, something that’s really cool and honestly rad.”
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