Pieter Bulling (Ngāi Tahu) will represent New Zealand in the Track Cycling Team Pursuit at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July 2014. Pieter currently represents New Zealand in the Team Pursuit with Marc Ryan, Aaron Gate and Dillon Kennett (also Ngāi Tahu, who we have written about here previously). In 2013 the team was 6th in the Manchester World Cup, 4th in the Mexico World Cup and in February 2014 won Bronze at the Cali Track World Championships in Columbia.
Pieter, who affiliates to the Waihōpai Rūnanga, was selected by Bike NZ in the Road to Rio programme in 2012. He now spends his winters based in Belgium road racing. In 2012 he was placed 3rd in the RAS Tour of Ireland in the Under 23 age-group. His summer months are spent on the track and competing in world events.
Pieter grew up on a lifestyle block on the banks of the Ōreti River in Southland. This farm was originally settled by Lewis Acker, who married Mari Pii of Ngāi Tahu in 1884.
Pieter loved bikes from the very beginning, spending most of the day riding and making bike tracks on the farm. He was a very good mountain biker but at age 12, he was introduced to road cycling by Laurie Tall, his coach. Pieter won four medals at the track nationals that year and with four medals from his first four races, he never looked back.
Pieter went on to become an outstanding junior track cyclist. He was also an excellent road cyclist and mountain biker with many national medals and titles; and he still holds three New Zealand junior records.
Pieter rode the Tour of Southland in 2012 at age 19. He was 10th overall and fourth in the Under 23 category. He was fortunate then, to have the only New Zealand indoor cycling velodrome in his home town of Invercargill. Since then a new velodrome has opened in Cambridge and Bike NZ is now based there.
Pieter’s descends from Koori Kori (full caste Māori) 1811, who was born on Ruapuke Island. She married whaler, Andrew Davis. Their son James Pohara Davis married Litetia Brooks and they had 13 children. Their daughter Hilda married Charles Pay and together they had two children. Their daughter Beverly married Peter Danen and their daughter Tonia, was one of five children. She married Grant Bulling and their two children are Heidi and Pieter.
Bronze medal Cali World Champs Pursuit team Aaron Gate, Pieter Bulling, Dylan Kennett and Marc Ryan.
Pieter, poster boy for endurance cycling.