For some, it’s the gold at the end of the rainbow that inspires them to achieve, but for Danny Hennessy it’s all about catching the rainbow and wrapping it around his chest.
In his 38 years of racing Danny has competed in 66 international cycling tours and has won numerous titles and races, too many to mention.
However, it was in 2009, after 3 years of hard training and discipline that Danny achieved the holy grail of wins, the world championship and the rainbow jersey in the track points race in Sydney. Being crowned a UCI world champion made Danny a member of a very small and elite group of winners who come from Wollongong.
Danny was an aspiring tennis player and junior football player when he caught the cycling bug through a school friend. He already had strong cycling legs from his part time job delivering medicines on his bike to elderly customers for a pharmacy in Wollongong. But it was his uncle, Darcy Hennessy that introduced him to cycling in the 1980s. Darcy was an avid and successful cyclist who was affiliated with the local cycling clubs, conducting races at the velodrome at MacCabe Park as well as on the road. In those days cycling in Australia and the Illawarra was prolific. There were numerous cycling clubs and they raced every weekend. When Danny realised he could compete each week, he gave up tennis and jumped at the chance to race every weekend.
Danny competed in his first race in 1984 and by 1990 he had achieved selection as one of NSW’s top 5 elite men and gained selection in the prestigious Commonwealth Cycle Classic.
Danny had a talent for road racing and excelled in cycling events with hills. So much so that in 1991 he was selected to represent Australia in the Tour of New Caledonia and returned in 1992 to win the mountain jersey as the best climber. Danny returned to this difficult stage race a total of 10 consecutive occasions and won the mountain polka dot jersey again in 1997 and 1998.
In 1994 after quitting his job and travelling to Europe to race in Switzerland, he returned to the Pacific to compete in the Tour of Wellington and the Tour of Tahiti. Along the way he had encouraged others to travel with him to compete in these races and gain experience in international competitions. The training in Europe paid off and Danny secured the win in the Tour of Tahiti. He repeated this success in 1997. In all, Danny has competed in the Tour of Tahiti more than 22 times.
In the span of a 38 years, Danny has travelled overseas to race every year up to 2019 when the COVID pandemic prohibited international travel. Over this time he has amassed extraordinary experiences, wins and losses, friendships and contacts and a wealth of cycling knowledge.
Danny has also made significant contributions to cycling development and competitions, including introducing Cyclo Cross to Australian cycling, a cross between road and mountain biking, which is popular all over the world. More notably, Danny has mentored and supported local cyclists to learn to race and develop a hunger for winning.
Everyone in the Illawarra cycling world knows Danny Hennessy. He is an encyclopaedia of knowledge about every aspect of cycling and is passionate about cycling history and restoring classic bikes to their original condition.
While Danny wants to keep racing and see others take up the sport, his biggest dream of all is to see Australian cycling become a celebrated and magnificent sport once again.
