In terms of high-performance sporting achievement, few Tasmanians have been as successful as Dr Scott Gardner.
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And yet the publicity-shy 45-year-old can exist in relative obscurity even in his home state.
But between rural Cressy where he grew up and the East Coast hinterland where he has settled post-COVID, Gardner's action-packed career has taken in multiple Olympic Games and world championships around the planet.
Gardner is a world-leading pioneer in the field of sports science with skills in demand from a range of countries.
His highest-profile KPIs have come in cycling, helping Aussies Ryan Bayley OAM, Anna Meares OAM and Shane Kelly OAM to Olympic glory in 2004 before repeating the feat with Brits Sir Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny CBE and Victoria Pendleton CBE in 2008 and 2012 and continuing the trend with world champions Azizul Awang, of Malaysia, along with BMX riders Sam and Alise Willoughby.
But Gardner's versatility has also seen him steer Britain's national swimming and canoeing programs towards similar international success.
Asked his specific job description, Gardner replies with a question. "Do you have titles in good teams?"
Sport scientist, physiologist or performance analyst all tell part of the story about a man who operates as a sport consultant and founded a leadership coaching company (www.trackrecord.coach) based in London.
Unconventional doesn't do justice to someone who became head coach of British Canoeing but said he has still never paddled a K1.
"I was never brought in as a canoeing coach, I was a specialist to help the coaches coach better. That's how I saw my role as head coach," he explained.
"It's not always about being a technical specialist. It is about helping coaches and athletes find better ways to improve themselves.
"I think we get so caught up in conventional wisdom in sport and are not always professional enough in our coaching. There's a big culture change needed in sport to really understand end-in-mind performance planning.
"I learned how to bring people together and we started using a performance planning method that I had developed over years in sport helping people focus on what is important and not just what is directly in front of them and they have always done. You can help coaches and athletes break through cultures and conventions to deliver better results.
"Now that coaching is professionalising, it's a really interesting time for sport."
Gardner is the first to admit his own sporting achievements were relatively modest, but he never saw that as an impediment to working with elite athletes.
He competed in football, athletics and rowing with his proudest achievement being a teammate of future Richmond great Matthew Richardson in a North v South match at North Hobart Oval in the early '90s.
He said there were moments when people questioned his credentials, most memorably when straight-talking cyclist Sean Eadie slammed his hand on a table in a crowded room and asked 'What can you do for me?'
"He became a world champion," Gardner reflected. "These guys do stuff I could not dream of doing. But people who have great coaching skills don't have to have competed at the highest level. It's not always necessary. There are some advantages to having done so but there are some disadvantages in getting caught up with conventions."
Launceston-born, Gardner went to Cressy District High and Launceston Church Grammar before studying human movement at the University of Queensland with an honours in exercise management which he researched at the Queensland Academy of Sport.
" I watched Carl Lewis win four gold medals in Los Angeles and from that moment was hooked on Olympic sport," he said.
"Originally I wanted to do physio because I thought it was all that was available but slowly discovered sports science was my passion. Early on I did not really know there was a career path in it."
After progressing to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, Gardner joined the national cycling program under head coach Martin Barras in 2001 leading Australia's best into the 2002 Commonwealth Games and 2004 Olympics.
"That was an interesting period of time in my life but also thrilling. I had spent three years on the road with the sport before going to Athens and being on the team supporting Martin and the athletes - that was the childhood dream. I was doing 100km training rides with Shane Kelly - my childhood hero. It was phenomenal, pinch-yourself stuff."
After finishing his PhD in Brisbane, Gardner was approached to join British Cycling in 2005 and helped the track team win seven gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.
The opportunities here are second to nowhere and I say that having been all around the world
- Scott Gardner
One of them was Pendleton in the sprint, by which stage the coach and the athlete were a couple.
"I was aware of a conflict of interest and decisions were going to be made," he said. "The decision was that I should go, and I went to British Swimming."
Working with the likes of double world open water champion Keri-anne Payne and triple Commonwealth Games champion James Goddard, Gardner supported the British team at the 2009 world championships in Rome.
"It was 100 per cent the best experience for my career. I was there for 10-11 months travelling around the world for camps and competitions and really finding my feet as a professional coach rather than just a cycling specialist."
He returned to British Cycling to become the coach and later husband of Pendleton who, along with heptathlete Dame Jessica Ennis, was one of the faces of the London Olympics.
Pendleton's duels with Gardner's former charge Meares would become one of the enduring memories of the Games.
Partnering with Jess Varnish, Pendleton broke the world record in the qualifying stages of the team sprint before being disqualified in the semi-finals for an illegal change, but the nine-time world champion bounced back the next day to win the keirin then lose a thrilling sprint final to Meares.
"It was stressful and challenging but phenomenal and exciting," Gardner said of Pendleton's high-profile London campaign.
"I was so proud of what we were able to achieve. Victoria was three-tenths of a second quicker than anyone else and a serious shot at winning three golds but ended up with nothing from the first one so it was pretty phenomenal of her to get up the next day and beat the likes of Anna Meares and Kristina Vogel in the keirin. Anna and Vic were evenly matched. They were the two best bike riders on the planet so it was right that they came out with a gold medal each. For me it just felt right, as much as I struggled to deal with the fairness of it at the time."
Two years as head coach at British Canoeing helped create the foundations for gold medallist Liam Heath before Gardner joined the Malaysian Sports Institute and cycling team. He separated from Pendleton in 2018 and was on a ski holiday in France in March when COVID-19 turned everybody's world upside-down.
Gardner's home state seemed the safest refuge and, after flying back and quarantining in a caravan at his sister's home in Longford, he began looking for a more permanent home.
He was swiftly won over by a St Helens property featuring 20 acres, 500 fruit trees, a nine-hole chip and putt golf course, seven chooks, four guinea fowl and a friendly resident wombat.
"It was not pre-planned that I was coming back but COVID changed a few things and there's a lot more to life than just travelling around the world watching cyclists, swimmers and canoeists which I've done for a long time. I thought this was a real opportunity and I can still consult online in Australia."
Gardner and his British partner Katie Couchman have plans to develop the property alongside the nearby mountain bike trail network although he said getting Couchman into Australia is presenting a huge challenge due to COVID restrictions.
But it has taken little time for Tasmania to win back an export who also played a role in another cycling success story from the fertile breeding grounds of the South Esk catchment.
"I get the sense he's happy - he's still got so much to offer and if he gets another crack, he's good enough," Gardner said of Hadspen's Tour de France star Richie Porte, who is set to rejoin the British pro team INEOS next year.
"I am just so blessed and privileged to have had these experiences and learned from them, worked with wonderful people and travelled around the world and now I'm keen to bring some of that back to Tasmania with my partner," he added.
"I've got a British passport now and there are things I love about both countries but the opportunities here are second to nowhere and I say that having been all around the world.
"People are twigging on to what's here. I can be on the Bay of Fires in 15 minutes and last week saw humpback whales while out fishing with my old man. That's the sort of thing you miss when you're living in London going to work on the tube.
"We need to live life and appreciate what we've got. There's real opportunity for Tasmania. What a period of time to be living here."