Читать книгу Between the Lines: My Autobiography - Victoria Pendleton - Страница 7

My bed turned into a fairground ride. I lay in the dark and clutched the mattress as I seemed to tilt up and down, round and round, in an endless loop of blurring movement. There were moments when I wanted to laugh out loud, or even say ‘woooaaahhh!’ as the room rocked.

‘God,’ I whispered to myself, ‘this is crazy shit …’

I didn’t take drugs, and I hardly drank, but an afternoon at the Manchester Velodrome left me tripping round the dizzying curves of the wooden track. Six hours had passed since I had slipped off my bike, but the wild rollercoaster ride would not leave the leaping pit of my stomach or the lurching whir of my mind. I could feel the same rolling sensations climbing high inside me, creeping up towards my buzzing brain, before racing back down again as if I was still on the bike and careering along the sharply banked track.

At first, because he was careful not to scare me, Marshall Thomas made sure I did not really notice the dizzying gradient of the velodrome. Speaking in the same quiet voice I remembered from our phone conversation, he concentrated on making me feel comfortable in this jolting new environment. I was a flat grass-track girl, with just a gritty smattering of experience on the hard cement at Welwyn Garden City.

Yet Marshall made me feel at home. He was much younger than I had expected – in his early thirties – and more low-key than Dad in his approach to cycling. He was also obviously intelligent and I liked the relaxed way in which he introduced me to the surrounding track.

The Manchester Velodrome belonged to another world. It looked strange, even beautiful, as Marshall slowly led me round the curved wooden bowl on my fixed-wheel bike. Marshall explained that the structure of the roof was based on a 122-metre, 200-tonne arch which provided unrestricted viewing for spectators. The roof was covered in aluminum, and weighed around 600 tonnes. But Marshall, like me, was more interested in the track.

The wood looked very shiny under the bright lights. Marshall said the 250m track was Britain’s first purpose-built indoor velodrome and that the wood flashing beneath us was the finest Siberian pine. Back then, in my teenage innocence, I had no idea that those smooth and gorgeous boards could tear chunks of flesh off your legs or arms as easily as a butcher might skin a rabbit.

I might have fainted if I had seen the sight I witnessed on this same track fifteen years later when, in a World Cup keirin race in 2011, the Malaysian rider Azizulhasni Awang stared in horror at his leg after a crash. Twenty centimeters of pure velodrome wood ran through his calf, like a meaty kebab stick, with the pointed ends jutting out on each side. The pain of being skewered must have been terrible. A day later, surgery removed that huge splinter in a clean excision from Awang’s calf.

Fortunately, as a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, I was spared such grisly visions of the future. I was also blissfully unaware that Jason Queally would suffer a similar fate later that same year, in 1996. He crashed on his bike, while circling the track at 35mph, and a large chunk of wood lodged in his back. Chris Hoy revealed later that it was eighteen inches long and two inches wide. Suggesting it was ‘more like a fence post than a splinter’, Chris quipped in his dry way that, ‘Jason’s scream of “I’ve got half the fucking track in my back” was not unreasonable in the circumstances.’ It took almost 100 stitches to close the wound. I was far too naïve to imagine that splintering trauma.

Marshall skirted the dangers of the track by explaining that, as we cruised along the blue band running round the base of the circuit, we would ride at a steady pace. I followed him, my front wheel holding a perfect line with his back wheel, as Marshall led us round and round. After all my years of trailing Dad, I knew how to follow a wheel, and so I began to settle. It helped that Marshall was so warm and engaging. He kept telling me just to enjoy myself. There was no pressure or expectation on me.

Gradually, Marshall took me further up the track. By the time we had reached the upper banking it felt almost ordinary as we went round in high circles. After so many years on the road and the grass, I felt comfortable on the wooden boards.

Then, seamlessly, we began. Marshall’s bike banked to the left and, carefully at first, he steered us down the sheer gradient to the bottom. After another half-lap, he pulled us up towards the right and we began to climb back again to the top. We repeated the procedure again and again, and each time we seemed to gather speed as we zipped down the sumptuously curvy circuit. Up and down, round and round we went, faster and faster, until it really did begin to feel like a fairground ride. Towards the end we hurtled along the boards, my bike tracking his, as we flew down the banks with an exhilarating whoosh. The sensations were sharpened by the fact that, like all track bikes, there was only one gear and no brakes.

I loved the giddy contrasts and rollicking speed of the velodrome. Marshall must have sensed my passion because we rode together for over an hour – more than long enough for the sensations to still be unfolding inside me late that night. Yet it was only after our ride, when he walked me round the top of the track, that I appreciated the height of the velodrome.

Marshall explained that the steepest part of the track rises to 42½ degrees. Towards the bottom it dips down to a shallower 12½ degrees. Clutching an iron railing, I suddenly noticed how scary it looked from the top. The geometry of the design, Marshall said, helped maximize the speed of the riders. The angle of our exit from the bankings, so much sharper than our entry, explained why it felt like we were being catapulted along the straights – as if we were riding downhill.

Alone in bed, in the dark, I closed my eyes. I saw all the piney patterns and deeper shadows of the track. I heard the distinctive sounds of the velodrome in my head and, most of all, I felt the surreal excitement of riding a fast and beautifully geometric track. I knew I’d be back, and the thought sent a thrill rippling through me. Sleep was elusive; but I didn’t mind. In my head, I was riding round and round, up and down, dreaming of the next time. I was happy in the fairground.

No-one in the Pendleton family had ever been to university; but I resolved to break the mould. Nicola, my big sister, was always much brighter than me. I was certain she would have been suited to university life had she broken free from Dad’s pragmatic grip. But, like me, Nicky found it hard to step away from our father. Dad, in his straightforward way, did not really see the point of university. Why study some more, after all those years at school, when you could go straight into the real world and earn money in a proper job? Life would always teach you much more than university – and at least you would be paid for it at the same time. Dad’s logic was unshakeable.

As an accountant it made sense to Max Pendleton that his eldest daughter should follow him into the same career. Nicky was intelligent and artistic; and she did not feel any compulsion to enter the dazzling world of accountancy. But it was hard for her being the eldest. Dad had only mellowed a little by the time, five years later, it was the turn of Alex and me to make our career choices.

My sister, as Dad decreed, worked in an office and studied, at the same time, at an accountancy college. Nicky has done remarkably well and now runs her own small accountancy business – and lives a good life. But it’s easy to see Dad’s influence over her working life.

Alex, as always, was more independent than his sisters. He decided early on that he would go to art college and become a graphic designer. Dad could see commercial merit in that choice and so there was no big drama around Alex. His future would follow a much less intense path than mine.

By the time we were in the upper sixth, and I was taking my three A-levels in Chemistry, Biology and Geography, I knew I wanted to go to university. The idea that a track cyclist, especially a woman, might make money out of riding round in circles, was too ludicrous to consider. I needed a university education to help me forge a decent career.

I could handle Dad by then, and convinced him that I needed to stick to my instinct when it came to choosing university over an ordinary job straight out of school. But I still tussled with wider uncertainties. I wanted to be exceptional at whatever I did – even if it drove Dad halfway round the bend when I couldn’t tell him what that work might be one day.

It was enough for me that, in my last year of school, I was happy. After all the lonely trauma of senior school it seemed striking that I suddenly found contentment at the very end. I had my gang of girls; and we were cool enough in our own heads. I also had a boyfriend and cycling.

My bike world remained a mystery to everyone else at school. Even though my boyfriend and my closest girls knew I had been approached by British Cycling, it was such an esoteric activity I rarely spoke about it. I liked it that way. It felt good to have something that belonged to me alone. At home, it was different. Cycling was Dad’s domain. He was fascinated by the training programmes Marshall Thomas sent through the post and, much more than me, he was excited by my prospects in the sport he loved.

Marshall’s emotional intelligence made him very different to most men in professional cycling; and he instinctively recognized my vulnerability and always tried to reassure me. Whenever he suggested a new training routine, Marshall stressed I should only attempt anything that suited me and my schooling. If a more dogmatic coach had tried to take hold of me at seventeen, and forced his will onto me, I would have given up cycling even before I really started.

For a guilt-stricken girl, Marshall’s compassionate and easy manner resembled the sweetest of gifts. I discovered that I loved training. I was happier than ever on my bike and it felt natural to fulfil all Marshall’s programmes.

The order and discipline of training matched the intricately planned revision timetable I set myself – and so my last months of school flew past. I began to understand myself more clearly. My appetite for hard work, and my ambition to succeed, were obvious. The demons of teenage doubt were pushed down further as, in my exams and on my bike, I hurtled towards the future.

Soon after I arrived in September 1999 at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, one of my lecturers sat me down and said, as an aspiring athlete, I could only fulfil two of the three options available to me. Those possibilities consisted of obtaining a good BSc degree in Sports Science, training hard in my chosen sport and having a great social life. One objective would have to be surrendered to ensure the success of the two remaining aims. I knew he was right and, for me, it was not a difficult choice.

I felt certain my social life would expand in later years but, back then, I was committed only to my degree and to cycling. Life at Northumbria consisted of an agreeably Spartan existence. I went to my lectures and worked hard. And, when I wasn’t studying, I tucked myself away in the gym – where, as some kind of indulgence, there was a television to watch while I pummelled my body. I didn’t have a TV in my room and so my exercise routine also offered escapism.

Training mostly with the runners, as there were no serious cyclists at university, I made some new friends. We soon became a tight-knit group. In the gym I also learnt how to use weights – as I set about trying to build strength into my slight frame. At the same time, while I was not especially scientific, I was interested in an analytical and statistical approach to sport. Despite remaining a real chatterer, I liked the rigour of work and training. I felt both purposeful and serious in Newcastle.

Significantly, I also felt liberated from Dad, especially the arguing and the long painful silences of my adolescence. We’d had many good moments towards the end of school – and I loved the fact that Dad bought me a toolbox for my eighteenth birthday – but it was hard to escape some of the old struggles. I was tired of Dad making me feel guilty and I wanted to shape my own decisions.

Our relationship improved when I was living away from him. I felt less sapped by our battles, and it was good to tell him how my training was progressing. But whenever I phoned home I spoke mostly to Mum. We’d natter away easily because nothing had changed between us. Mum was less concerned with my training schedule than hearing about what I was eating and wearing, who I was hanging out with, and when next I planned a trip down south to see them again. It was only at the end of our long and breezy conversations that Mum would invariably shout out: ‘Max, do you want to say hello to Lou?’

Dad would come on the line but it was noticeable that we hardly spoke about anything but cycling. The bike remained our only real connection. I didn’t believe him but Dad seemed more certain than ever that I was on my way to becoming a world champion.

Mum, of course, was an unchanging source of comfort and common sense. She always would tell me that I could only do my best. It was very simple advice, but the wisest set of words anyone ever gave to me.

Her dad, my old granddad Alf, straddled the difference between my parents. He was much more passionate than Mum about sport, and he loved hearing how well I was doing on the track, but his way of boosting me was more humorous than Dad. For years Granddad had been telling me that I should strut around and tell everyone to call me ‘Champ’ – as they had better get used to me being a champion. I just smiled and said, ‘Granddad – no!’ He would then regale me with another story of how he used to drive Mabel, his wife and my nanna, crazy by always being the last on the team bus when he played football.

‘If you’re good enough, Mabel,’ he would say, ‘they’ll always wait for you …’

Alf Viney was an amusing and kind man; and he survived the death of Mabel by keeping active. Every lunchtime Granddad made the short walk down the back alley behind his house to the Irish Social where, without fail, he would drink his pint-and-a-half of beer while remembering the days he’d also played cricket and football and table-tennis for the county. Granddad told me that a pint-and-a-half a day kept him strong. It helped him play golf until the age of ninety-two and he was always trying to get me to taste his beer. ‘It’s good for you, Victoria,’ he’d say when I scrunched up my face at the taste, before reminding me again that everyone should call me ‘Champ’. Granddad always made me laugh.

My relationship with Nicola and Alex also improved once we were living apart from each other. In our teenage years the typical strains between siblings had been evident. But now, leading new lives away from home, our old closeness re-emerged. Everything had begun to gel – family, university and, increasingly, cycling.

At the start of a new century, during the spring of 2001, I discovered a different world in a battered and stationary old camper van. For seven weeks, in the parking lot outside the Manchester Velodrome, I fell into exhausted sleep every night. It was a bizarre way to gain my first sustained taste of professional cycling but, having turned twenty the previous September, I loved my camper van experience.

Phil Hayes, my personal tutor, and Marshall Thomas helped shape that profound change. Marshall had also studied at Northumbria and he was receptive when Phil, who worked with elite athletes at the university, approached him to see if he might help me find a work placement. Deep into the second year of my degree, Marshall arranged a seven-week-long work secondment for me in the World Class Performance Plan offices of British Cycling. Apart from giving me the chance to work in a sports office, my weeks on site allowed me to train regularly. Every lunchtime, and after work each evening, I could take my bike out on the gleaming boards that had so entranced me on my first afternoon at the velodrome. It was a unique opportunity for me to improve with consistent training.

My record was still modest. I was best known for having won three national grass-track titles over 800m. In 1999, on the track, I had finished third in the national sprint championships over 500m. Those results look better now than they felt then. There was only one other British woman sprint cyclist of note – Wendy Everson. She had finished fourth in the 1994 Commonwealth Games and had ridden in a couple of World Championships without coming close to any medals. Everson didn’t make the Great Britain Olympic squad in Sydney in 2000 and, fifteen years older than me, she would not receive any funding from the new lottery-based scheme. But at least she had some experience. I had nothing on an indoor track.

The pursuit events were different. Yvonne McGregor had won a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. She had also won gold that same year at the World Championships.

On my first day at the velodrome, having carefully parked the old camper van Mum and Dad had driven up to Manchester for me, I was excited to be in the same building as Yvonne and the male cyclists who had won medals at the Sydney Olympics. I had watched transfixed when Jason Queally won gold in the men’s kilo – the one kilometre time trial. Jason’s victory had marked a turning point in my life.

In the summer of 2000 it had been a huge moment when, in the stark setting of a motorway service station, I had stood alongside my parents and a small but whooping crowd as we watched Jason race on the other side of the world. Mum and Dad were in the midst of taking me back up north when, luckily, we stopped off for a break just as the climax of the kilo was reached in the Olympics. The images beamed down from the service station television meant all the more to me because it was the first time I had actually seen live track cycling. Jason’s triumph made me tingle with the realization that I had ridden at the very velodrome where he trained in Manchester. Track cycling, from that point on, became as tangible as it was thrilling.

Twelve years earlier I had been too young to notice the significance of Chris Boardman’s gold medal in the individual pursuit at the Barcelona Olympics. But I realized that Jason would change perceptions of cycling in this country. His extraordinary achievement, alongside Yvonne’s bronze, was bolstered by two further British medals in Sydney.

Riding with Chris Hoy and Craig MacLean, Jason also won silver in the men’s team sprint. And then, in the team pursuit, Paul Manning, Chris Newton, Bryan Steele and a young Bradley Wiggins won bronze. Bradley, born in April 1980, was just six months older than me – but he moved in a more rarefied world. Never imagining then that I would be in contention for an Olympic medal myself, I looked up to riders like Bradley, Craig and, especially, Chris and Jason. They were gods of the track to me.

I was too shy to really talk to them and, instead, I usually waited for them to leave the track before I went out on my bike. A morning of filing, photocopying, checking stock, writing the occasional letter and cheerfully making tea and coffee for everyone suited me and the level of my track proficiency. I would have felt an utter fraud if I had been in the way of medal-winning Olympians.

But Marshall and Peter Keen, the performance director at British Cycling, were generous men. They wanted me to make the most of my stint at the velodrome. And so there were times when, to my amazement, I did share the track with the men. I kept my head down and tried hard not to be noticed.

Four years earlier, in 1997, Peter had shocked many people when he had stood up at the sport’s national convention and expressed his intention to turn British Cycling into an international powerhouse. It seemed an absurd ambition for a minority sport in Britain. Sniggers echoed round the room as he reached the culmination of his snazzy PowerPoint presentation. Peter, however, had the vision to match his ambition. He also knew that young riders like Bradley and Chris, in their respective pursuit and sprint events, had the potential to become World and Olympic champions if the economic limitations were overcome.

Peter would no longer accept a situation where a talented sprinter like Chris did not even have his own skinsuit when he made his international debut in the European Under-23s in 1996. Chris was loaned a GB skinsuit which, once the championships were over, he had to return so that it could be used the following year.

That same year, without any funding or the appropriate facilities, Peter used his own bathroom in an attempt to create the heat and humidity Yvonne McGregor would face at the Atlanta Olympics. He always joked that he had a very tolerant wife because, working with Yvonne, the bathroom carpet went out, the rectal probe went in, the bike-on-rollers started whirring and the heater was switched to 30 degrees. With hot water running out of the bath and shower until a humidity level of 90% was reached, Yvonne could then train in the appropriate conditions.

Pete always used to say, with a light laugh, ‘We cooked her.’ After an hour there would be a line of oil and sweat and bike-dirt going up the door, across the ceiling and down the wall because Yvonne would have lost two litres of sweat. Her perspiration hit the rollers and was flicked around the room – in apparent defiance of the fact there was neither lottery funding nor elite programmes at the velodrome then.

In 1998, when Peter secured a £6 million sponsorship scheme, funded by the National Lottery, he reinvented British Cycling in a profound way. Bradley, who had just won the World Junior Championships, was called into Peter’s office and offered the chance to become the first rider on British Cycling’s world-class performance plan. Chris went through the door next as a cycling dynasty was laid out in meticulous detail. The first achievements of that plan emerged in those four Olympic medals in Sydney.

Despite the lack of a women’s sprint programme, Peter and Marshall encouraged me to chase a place on a junior scheme called the England Potential Plan. They believed that, with sustained training, I had the ability to make the designated qualification time for the sprint. I had never before had a chance to really practise the line and grow used to the velodrome – and I was amazed how quickly I improved.

There was much to motivate me as I worked in the administrative office of British Cycling, rode hard on the track and ate my meals and slept in the camper van. Most nights, in the deserted but guarded car park, I relished the quiet. My only problem was that, unlike in training for competition, there was no tapering down of my programme. I attacked the track with abandon. I wanted to eat up as much time as I could on the wooden circuit – especially as most of my sessions were free.

Unfamiliar with the rigours of riding twice a day, seven days a week, I was wearily unsurprised when I just missed the qualifying mark. Peter and Marshall invited me to try again a few weeks later.

After some rest back in Northumbria, I returned to Manchester early the following month. There was a freshness to my legs, and a vigour to my riding, as I smashed the qualifying time at my first attempt. Peter and Marshall smiled and confirmed that I had made it onto the England Potential Plan – the lowest rung on the ladder of elite British cycling.

Before I left Manchester they presented me with my kit. As an increasingly fashionable girl, I tried hard to conceal my amazement at the terrible canary yellow colour they had chosen. Instead, I thanked them both for believing in me so much.

‘I’ll do my best not to let you down,’ I promised.

‘We know that,’ Marshall said as he patted my shoulder. ‘You’re going to be just fine …’

I was still dazzled whenever I returned to the velodrome for training during my time away from university. I gazed in wonder at Chris Hoy and Jason Queally, trying to work out what they did to become such exceptional sprinters. Cycling has always been a masculine environment. I was used to the dominance of alpha males, especially with a dad like Max Pendleton, and riding against men as a junior. But Queally, Hoy, MacLean, Wiggins and the rest of the men’s elite squad were remarkable riders. I felt it was a sham for me to be training alongside them.

It was also odd for them. I think they were all slightly disconcerted and despairing of me. I would turn up to training in a GB top matched with a mini-skirt and sparkly sandals. The boys never said anything out loud to me but I did see the odd eye-roll and I could imagine them all saying, ‘Oh my gosh, this girl cannot be serious.’ But I was deadly serious. I wanted to get better and become more like them on my bike. The distinction, however, was obvious. I did not want to try and look like them or act like them off the bike. It felt essential that I should keep on looking like a girl, and acting like a girl, even as I tried to turn myself into a rigorously committed cyclist.

None of the men on the squad believed that competitive racing and femininity worked together. It was almost as if one concept automatically cancelled the other. I set out, in my own way, to prove that it really was possible to both be a very girly girl and an imposing cyclist. It was hard because, in cycling, I had no-one I could look towards. And only a few women athletes inspired me. Denise Lewis had won gold in the heptathlon at the Sydney Olympics and she was strikingly beautiful and graceful. She was a formidable athlete; and a gorgeous woman. I was neither; but Denise gave me the template to which I would aspire over the next decade. Grit and glamour did not have to be mutually exclusive.

At the velodrome I probably just seemed ridiculous. I had a very girly voice and a very girly laugh. I also appeared as a waif on my bike next to Chris Hoy – who had thighs almost as big as my torso and muscles that rippled with the explosive power a great sprinter needs. I was small and slight with thin legs and a small bum. It seemed unlikely I would find the force to generate a natural jump – the acceleration that distinguishes a good sprinter.

Yet all those Sunday mornings, chasing Dad’s wheel, had instilled conviction in me. I would not surrender easily. I might have appeared vulnerable but, deep inside, I was a fighter. I also knew that, when I concentrated my mind, I was capable of surprising people. I was not quite as delicate or as silly as some had decided. I was ready to shock a few cynics.

Martin Barras was top of my hit-list. In the midst of an eighteen-month stint at British Cycling in Manchester, Martin (or Mar-tain, to use the correct pronunciation of his name) took an instant dislike to me. ‘Miss Victoria,’ he said on the day we first met at the velodrome, ‘I’m going to find you very annoying …’

He might as well have slapped me in the face. Martin had never seen me ride my bike and we had not said more than ‘hello’ to each other when he declared his disdain for me. I was cut to the core and rendered speechless – a trait with which I’m not readily associated.

It soon became clear why Martin was so vehemently dismissive of me. He had specific ideas in regard to the physiological and psychological make-up of the ideal sprinter. I was far too puny, in Martin’s view, to generate any raw power. There was no beef or muscle on me – and Martin simply could not see where I would find the strength to overcome my physical frailty. He also took one look at me and decided I lacked the swagger and killer instinct of a supreme sprinter. Martin mistook my diffidence for weakness.

I don’t think he meant to be cruel. He just spoke with, in his opinion, blunt honesty. He could dismiss me physically but I was outraged he could deride my character within a minute of meeting me. Alongside my buried anger, I was shaken by his mockery. It made me wonder if he had seen some intrinsic flaw in me. All the confidence that had begun to flow through me since Marshall spotted me, and Peter Keen endorsed his belief, threatened to curdle over one snide sentence.

Privately, I resolved to prove Martin wrong. Yet, when training dipped or I was tired, I felt wounded all over again. I would have ridden well if I felt he respected or even liked me. But, to Martin, I was a source of pesky irritation. He set me back.

I summoned the courage to mention my problem to Chris Hoy and Craig MacLean – who both tried to reassure me that I had ‘got Martin all wrong’. Chris was convinced that Martin would be too professional not to give me a chance to prove myself. I nodded quietly, but Martin had made it plain that I would never become a decent sprinter. My only slim hope would be to switch to endurance events on the track.

Fortunately, Marshall, Peter and Heiko Salzwedel, the new German-born manager of the sprint squad, believed in me. In July 2001, and still only a twenty-year-old student, I was startled to be selected to ride for Great Britain in the European Championships. The team would be managed by Marshall and, as the Europeans were then limited to riders under the age of twenty-three, Olympic medallists like Queally, Hoy and McGregor were not included. I was still daunted that two of the three other members of the team had been on the Olympic podium less than a year earlier. Bradley Wiggins would race in the individual pursuit while Craig would triple up in the individual sprint, the 500m time trial and the omnium. Steve Cummings, another talented rider, would compete alongside Brad in the individual pursuit.

They were all much more accomplished competitors than me, and each of them was chasing victory in the Europeans as a win would secure automatic qualification for the World Championships in Antwerp later that year. Riding in the women’s sprint and 500m time trial I wasn’t thinking of winning anything. I was just hoping I wouldn’t fall off my bike and look a complete idiot.

The Europeans were held in the city of Brno, which we all pronounced Bruno, in the newly independent Czech Republic. I arrived at the airport in my GB tracksuit, brimming with pride and tripping over with nerves, while the boys managed to look outrageously laidback. I liked them all. Craig showed the first signs of interest in my future – in a way which would eventually help transform my approach to cycling – while Brad was the quirkiest guy in the national squad.

Brad was amusing and charismatic and I felt lucky to sit next to him on the flight across Europe. I also felt hopelessly out of my depth. Brad seemed to know everything about cycling while I knew nothing. He was intensely passionate about the sport, both on the road and the track, and he didn’t seem to mind that I was so ignorant. Brad answered my fascinated questions generously and enthusiastically. I was certain he was on his way to becoming a legendary cyclist – while it was more obvious than ever that I had fallen into a strange new world by pure chance.

When we arrived in Brno, I was in a room on my own and immediately felt disorientated. The boys teamed up naturally and, as the only girl, I was unintentionally sidelined while they met up to chat or watch a film. I sat alone in my room fretting about whether they’d said we would meet at 6.30 or 7.30 for a meal. So down I went to the hotel lobby at 6.25. When no-one appeared for twenty minutes I returned to my room – having worked out that they must have said 7.30.

I should have spoken to Marshall but I was worried about looking worried. I was soon paranoid about looking paranoid. The boys, of course, were all lovely when we did meet up for dinner and I calmed myself down. It was much better than sitting alone in my room, obsessing about the coming races.

There was little serenity in the Brno Velodrome. Whenever I saw another female sprinter I thought of Martin Barras. The women all had meaty thighs and big behinds. Their upper bodies were squat and powerful and their haircuts, for the most part, appeared equally severe. Mullets were still cool in sprint cycling. The Russian women, in particular, looked brutally strong. Martin would have loved to have exchanged me for one of them.

It soon emerged that my lack of physicality mattered far less than my hapless tactical knowledge. I realized how unprepared I was for the strategic minefield of the individual sprint. Unlike in the pursuit, where riders start at opposite ends of the track, two sprinters begin from the same point in a three-lap race. I was still learning the intricacies of the sprint.

Luck of the draw dictates which cyclist is drawn for the role of the lead-out rider – with the second sprinter having the potential advantage of, at high speed, expending less effort if they manage to use the draft behind the first rider to reduce the physical toll. On the last lap they can zip out of the trailing slipstream and, with gathering momentum, rocket past the lead-out rider. The element of surprise is vital to any attack.

Lead-out riders were far from helpless; even if the need to constantly look over their shoulders, to monitor the sprinter following them, suggested vulnerability. In their own way, the lead sprinter could dictate the slow pace of the first two laps and settle on the line of the ride. The first sprinter often will lead the trailing rider up the steep bank where they can pin them against the barrier and so force the second cyclist to overtake and assume the lead-out role. Some riders are brilliant at bringing their bikes to a complete halt on the curved bank by standing up and balancing with both feet motionless on the pedals and their front wheel at an angle. If they can hold this position, a ‘track stand’ or ‘standstill’, long enough, the second rider will be forced to start pedalling again and take over the lead role. But the first rider can also outwit his or her rival by accelerating earlier than expected and opening up a sufficiently wide margin to deny the second cyclist a chance to benefit from racing in the slipstream.

The old cliché of a cat toying with a mouse felt especially vivid and true as I watched the cruel psychology of the sprint in Brno. I definitely fell into the mouse-trap and my defeat was swift and almost merciful. There wasn’t even time for me to confront the tortuous tactical struggle. I got so confused in the slow ride around the track before the flying last lap and a half that I actually lost count. I even asked myself, at one bemused point, ‘Is this lap two or lap three?’ I was that bad.

I was finally classified a lowly eighth – both in the sprint and the 500m time trial. Unlike Bradley Wiggins, it did not seem like I was on my way to becoming a promising young maverick on the track. I just looked like a lost young girl, who hadn’t quite mastered the art of counting to three.

During my final year at university I reached an understanding with Phil Hayes, my tutor, and Marshall Thomas that I would spend one week out of every month training in Manchester. It would keep me in touch with the track as I tried to qualify for the Commonwealth Games in the summer of 2002. Supported by my university’s Elite Athlete programme, and by Sport Newcastle, I could just about afford my train tickets to and from Manchester.

I often struggled to Newcastle station, as I lived a kilometre away in the city, with the frame of my track bike over my shoulder, a wheel in one hand and my bag in the other. Taking my bike apart meant I wouldn’t be charged extra for it on the train – and I just had to worry about racing down the platform in Manchester shouting ‘’scuse me, ’scuse me, can I have my bike!’ as it would be stored in the far carriage. I always worried about losing it as, without a sponsor, I was responsible for all my own equipment. To that end I also supplied my own tools. As a way of reducing the weight, my dad had sawn down a spanner and made it so small the velodrome mechanics joked that it looked as if I worked on my wheels with a tea spoon. It was all part of my canny plan to travel light and cheap.

At Manchester Piccadilly I would walk another kilometre to the bus station. It sometimes felt like hard work, especially when it was cold and rainy, as I trudged down the road with my bike and heavy bag. I would then have to wait for a blue bus because it only charged 50p for a fare to Clayton. The two other different coloured buses cost £1.15 – and my saved 65p would go towards my tea that evening.

From Clayton it was only a short walk to the crack house on Ilk Street. We rather lovingly called it the ‘crack house’ because there was not much glamour or luxury about a place where you could stay for £10 a night. It belonged to the parents of Peter Jacques, a former sprint cyclist, and it was an open house for all cyclists affiliated to the national team. You could walk across the street and reach the velodrome through the back entrance, and for your ten quid you knew the house would be stocked with cereal, milk, butter and pasta. There was also a little corner shop where you could buy a jar of pesto or a loaf of bread.

The accommodation in Ilk Street was just as basic – as befitting one of only three houses on the road that had yet to be demolished. There were six bunk-beds in a large room and another all on its own in a very small room. I always opted for the small room. Sometimes the front door opened and a guy I had never seen before appeared. I couldn’t really ask if he was a cyclist because I wondered if I should have already recognized him. And, to make myself feel just a little safer at night, I would wedge a chair underneath the door handle in my bedroom at the back of the slightly scary crack house.

On 13 May 2002, I handed in my final assignment at the University of Northumbria. I was on course to graduate later that year with a 2:1 in my BSc Honours degree. My student life had flashed past in a sprinter’s blur. The following morning I left Newcastle for Manchester, to begin a journey that would consume the next ten years and three months of my life.

Martin Barras, much to my relief, had taken his leave of British Cycling and returned to Australia where I knew he would be much happier working with the strapping Meares sisters, Kerrie and Anna, than a lightweight girly like me. There would be further changes as Marshall Thomas was moving out of cycling and into photography. Peter Keen remained at the helm of British Cycling, at least for a short while longer. The introduction of lottery funding also enabled him to recruit Dave Brailsford, who had been a key adviser in obtaining that injection of public money, as the new programme director of British Cycling.

Dave was young and enthusiastic, with a degree in Sports Science just like me, and full of certainty that the country’s elite cyclists were just waiting to be galvanized. He believed in ‘the science of human excellence’ and in finding ways to allow riders to unleash the very best in themselves. Dave spoke in smooth sentences which sounded like they had been inspired by the books on management that he had read. In later years, words like ‘the aggregation of marginal gains’, which sounded so bizarre when you first heard them, would become seamless catchphrases that defined the attention to detail paid by the leaders of British Cycling. Dave and Peter were convinced that if every single facet of a cyclist’s performance was improved by even a couple of percentage points, the combined impact would transform the rider into a world-beating winner. It made such perfect sense that you wondered why no-one else had thought of it before Dave.

He carried the personal disappointment of not having achieved success as a road cyclist – and this just intensified Dave’s determination to succeed in a managerial role. Slowly, the evolution of British Cycling gathered pace. Further impetus was added by Manchester’s hosting of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

I was selected to ride for England in the Games – my first senior international competition. Peter and Dave also confirmed I would be moved on from the England Potential Plan if I based myself in Manchester and committed myself to cycling. There would not be much money at first – but enough to pay for the monthly rent of a room and my living expenses while allowing a little pocket money. More significantly, I could train full-time and prepare myself for a life in professional cycling.

The Commonwealths were an unexpected prelude to those long-term plans. It was not the easiest of experiences as the only other girl I really knew on the British squad was Denise Hampson. At the Commonwealths she represented Wales and so Denise and I were in different parts of the village. I shared a room with an endurance rider I had barely met and always had the anxiety of looking for someone I could sit with in the food hall at every meal. Those little quirks unsettled me.

I was also shocked by the electrifying atmosphere inside the velodrome. As an unseeded rider, I was allocated the very first ride on the very first night of competition – in the 500m time trial. I could hardly believe it when I looked up from the pits, ten minutes before my bike was wheeled onto the track, and saw that the velodrome was crammed with enthusiastic spectators. The enormity of attention made my spindly legs feel just a little wobbly.

The arena went deadly silent when, supported upright on my lonely bike, I waited for the five-beep countdown. At the sound of the fifth and last beep, signalling the start of my timed race around two laps of the track, the velodrome erupted. The crowd had reacted before me and so, for a second, I remained static on my bike, stunned by the explosion of noise. I managed to start turning my legs just in time and, as I sped around the wooden boards, the roar of the crowd surged through me. The noise seemed to invade my very being. After I crossed the line, and looked down at my wrists as I circled the track in a warm-down lap, I could see that little goosebumps had formed on my skin.

I finished fifth in the time trial, missing a medal, but I was confused once more in the sprint. The tactical vagaries were as mysterious as ever – especially as I had never ridden the event on the velodrome’s 250m of shimmering pine. Struggling again to keep count of the strategically slow laps, I won my first heat against Melanie Szubrycht, my England team-mate from Sheffield, but I was still immersed in the tactical head-fuck of trying not to be outwitted by my opponent. In the semi-final, Kerrie Meares, of Australia, introduced me to the rougher end of professional cycling. I didn’t expect to beat her, but I thought I’d give Kerrie a little run for the line. But she went out of her way to intimidate me.

Even though she knew she had much more power and speed, she took me right up the bank and used her bike to flick me against the barrier. The crowd booed Meares vociferously. Even the briefest of glances made it plain that, comparing Meares’s physique to mine, she had the clear beating of me if we raced in a straight line. It seemed bizarre that she should feel the need to intimidate me.

It was illuminating to watch the final between Meares and Canada’s Lori-Ann Muenzer. ‘Suddenly the Friendly Games were wearing a scowl,’ Eddie Butler wrote in the Observer as he moonlighted from commentating and writing about rugby to cover an obscure sport like cycling. ‘Meares won the first of three sprints, but was disqualified for what the judges called “intending to cause her opponent to slow down”. In other words, it seemed to this novice spectator, she tried to drive poor Lori-Ann up and over the cliff of the north curve. And what’s more, she seemed to do exactly the same thing in the second leg. The crowd was just building up to a growl of disapproval when a judge fired a gun twice. Presumably this was to halt the race, but in terms of keeping the atmosphere wholesome it was most effective, if slightly draconian. Meares was not disqualified this time, which seemed a bit iffy to me, but it did not cause a flutter among more knowledgeable onlookers. They restarted leg two, which Meares won in legit style. As she did the decider. All very thrilling; she won by half a spoke on the line.’

I could see how the brutal riding and bullish physique of the Meares sisters, Kerrie and Anna, chimed with the perspective of their new coach. Australia, the Meares girls and Martin Barras were dominant. But the British squad, split into four countries at the Commonwealth Games, was growing stronger by the month. I already knew that, for Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins, a glittering future loomed. My own life, both on and off the bike, was less certain.

It took just weeks for the next twist. I was invited to race for Great Britain in my first World Cup event in Kunming, China. Even the name, Kunming, sounded deeply mysterious in early August 2002. Mum drove me to the airport and we met Shane Sutton for the first time. I found him a little frightening, and Mum admitted later that she felt mildly concerned leaving me in the company of such an intense Australian.

Shane had won a gold medal alongside his brother Gary in the team pursuit at the 1978 Commonwealth Games, and he’d eventually moved to Britain in 1984 to continue racing. Three years later, he had ridden the Tour de France. Since his retirement he had become the national track cycling coach in Wales and, in 2002, Shane had joined the GB programme. We were both new to the squad but there was little doubt that the grizzled Aussie was coping better than me.

Shane must have recognized my uncertainty, for he did much to try and help me settle. Beneath the gruff exterior there was, clearly, a paternal streak in him towards me. I was overwhelmed. Soon after we touched down, and feeling dazzled after so many hours in the air, I was shocked by a different culture. Walking to the airport toilet I sidestepped a few phlegm-ridden tracers of spit as old women simply cleared their throats and shot the snotty contents onto the concourse floor. I was even more taken aback by the sight of women leaving their toilet doors wide open as they did their personal business over an open hole. Feeling very prim and proper, I closed the door to my own cubicle. I was not quite ready to embrace all the customs of Chinese culture.

Our hotel, however, was beautiful, with huge ornamental gardens where hedges were shaped into Chinese dragons. I was even more fascinated by the contrast that was evident from the back window of my lavish room. In the slum behind the hotel, lines of corrugated iron and tarpaulin could not hide the seething life as people washed their hair, squabbled and shouted while children went to the loo in full view on the side of the jumbled streets.

Kunming was the capital of Yunnan province and the track was a two-hour drive away from the city. In a crammed minibus, Bradley Wiggins, Tony Gibb, Kieran Page, Shane and I sat alongside riders from other countries. I usually perched next to a slightly older and kind Czech sprint cyclist, Pavel Buran. My eyes must have looked huge as I gazed at everything around us. We had already been offered suckling pig at a welcome banquet at our hotel, which I firmly declined, but I was still shocked to see two half-pigs stuck on a spike on the back of a motorbike. A couple of kids were perched upfront on the bike, with their dad behind them, and I thought they would have been amazed to hear that, when I was a girl, I loved pigs so much that my pencil case at school was covered in pictures of them. I was not quite ready to see so many butchered animals covered by flies as they flashed past our bus.

Once we had escaped the clogged heart of Kunming we hit some bumpy road which took us deep into rural China. Women and elderly men could be seen on the land, doing the work of farm machinery with their hands, as we raced through the dust and the heat towards my first World Cup event.

The brand new outdoor track, found at the base of the Himalayas, was hidden behind a big cast-iron gate which swung open slowly to reveal a mysterious sight. It was the first time I had seen a 330m track. We mostly raced at night, so it looked even more surreal under floodlights as giant moths flew around our heads. They were around two inches in length, and half-an-inch wide, and they looked scary – especially when their furry wingspan spread to three inches. I did my best to duck under them and also to avoid riding over the splattered remnants of squashed moth on the track.

Li Na, from China, won the women’s sprint. I finished fifth – amazed to have completed my first World Cup. I also felt like a freak-show star for, along with a blonde German cyclist, Christine Müller, I was stopped continually by Chinese people who wanted to take a photograph. Christine and I looked as unusual to the rural Chinese as the teeming slums and spiked pigs had seemed to me.

Shane Sutton still watched over me and, on the long trip home, we stopped off in transit in Bangkok. It was a nine-hour wait and Shane arranged for all of us to take a tour of the city. In a night market in downtown Bangkok, eating ravenously while watching some sumptuous Thai dancing, I melted into another experience. If these were the kind of strange, new places where cycling could take me I was ready for so much more. I was ready to see the world.