Читать книгу Between the Lines: My Autobiography - Victoria Pendleton - Страница 8

I lost myself, for a long while, in a place of breath-stealing beauty. I cried and I bled high up in the Swiss Alps, above the small and pretty town of Aigle, and it took me years to heal the wound. Even now, a decade later, it’s hard for me to return there in my head. It’s a place and a time of tangled darkness and, slowly, I need to unravel it in an attempt to understand why and how everything happened.

At the far end of Lake Geneva, just eight miles southeast of Montreux, and twelve miles further from Lausanne, it took a funicular train forty minutes to travel up the alpine cliff, leading from Aigle at the base of the Alps to an idyllic setting in the mountains. I was smitten by the way the shimmering water was made to look deeper and more mysterious by the steepling trees and mountains overhead. Absorbing the view at the top, I remembered that Aigle means ‘eagle’ in French.

At that spectacular retreat above Aigle, the International Cycling Union’s sprint academy was run by Frédéric Magné. An inspirational Frenchman who had won seven World Championships on the track, Fred Magné’s most recent gold medal, and his third in the keirin, came in 2000. Two years on, in November 2002, when I left England for Switzerland, Fred had swapped success on the track for a life of coaching sprint cyclists from around the world.

The departure of Martin Barras had filled me with relief – but it left all the sprinters at the Manchester Velodrome without a coach. Jason Queally, Chris Hoy and Craig MacLean shrugged off the loss. Quick-thinking and sure of their ability, they knew they could manage together until another specialist coach was appointed.

I had just turned twenty-two and, without any other woman sprinters on the team, I followed a lonelier path into the unknown. And then, out of nowhere, salvation was offered to me in the Swiss Alps.

Two months earlier, in late September 2002, at my first World Championships, in Copenhagen, a birthday cake began the transformation. On 24 September, the day I turned twenty-two, the lights in the restaurant of our team hotel dimmed after the evening meal. A beautiful chocolate cake was then brought to my table while everyone broke into spontaneous song. ‘Happy birthday to you,’ they sang, ‘happy birthday, dear Vicky, happy birthday to you …’

Those twelve sweetly familiar words sounded strangely resonant. Rather than being clichéd or twee, they were rich and warm. As the whole squad boomed out, just for me, I felt as if I belonged. It had taken six months but, finally, I was part of the team. All my uncertainty melted away in the candlelight. I blew out all twenty-two little flames as the boys whooped. They even threw in a few more hip-hip-hoorays for me.

I knew, then, that I was on my way to Switzerland – less in farewell to the team than with the certainty that I would eventually return to Manchester as an improved cyclist after a year of being trained by Magné. The opportunity arose unexpectedly, and I heard about it soon after I ended up in an ambulance racing towards a German hospital. I had just been knocked out, literally, during the European Under-23 Track Championships.

In the sprint, against Tamilla Abassova, the Russian rider, I was sent crashing head-first into the wooden track. She turned her wheel right into mine in the midst of our race and down I went. I heard later that a doctor was on the brink of trying to resuscitate me when I opened my eyes and tried to move. But I only became fully conscious in the ambulance – where a kindly German paramedic, a large man with soft eyes, had soothed me while I moaned ‘Where am I? Where am I?’ over and over again.

Abassova powered her way to the European sprint title and my sore head was eased by the consoling words of Heiko Salzwedel, our team manager. He revealed that, before my accident, he had discussed my potential with Fred Magné. Heiko, Peter Keen and Shane Sutton were determined to push me on and, in Fred and his new sprint school, they identified a way forward. Fred recognized my raw talent and he agreed to their request. British cycling would pay for me to work with Fred – and the option was thrilling.

A chance to commit myself fully to the track encouraged me to believe my future might be shaped by cycling. My subsequent selection for the World Championships, topped off by birthday wishes the day before competition began, boosted me even more. I was on my way.

In the Worlds, however, I lost in the first heat to Svetlana Grankovskaya; and I wasn’t exactly mortified when Kerrie Meares was beaten in the final by Natallia Tsylinskaya, a multiple world champion from Belarus.

The men, meanwhile, won three gold medals. Chris Hoy became world champion in the kilo – and then, with Craig MacLean and Jamie Staff, he helped GB win the team sprint. Chris Newton also won the points race in magnificent style. Australia, as usual, headed the table with thirteen medals. Great Britain finished second, with a tally of five. We were eight medals down on the Aussies but, significantly, they had won just one more gold.

There was a gathering sense that British cycling was closing the gap. Our men looked increasingly imposing; and, even if I cut a stick-like figure amongst the hulking women from Eastern Europe and Australia, I was determined to become fitter and faster. I was now an accepted member of the national team and about to embark on a life-changing adventure in Switzerland.

In November 2002, I arrived in Geneva with Ross Edgar, from the men’s sprint squad. Ross was lovely company and it helped that he had already spent a sustained period at Fred’s school. It was also obvious that Fred, who met us at the airport, loved Ross. He might have been born in England but Ross’s mum was French and his dad was a Scot. Ross chose to represent his father’s country – and in that year’s Commonwealth Games he had won the team sprint with Hoy and MacLean. But Fred was most enamoured by Ross’s French heritage and his capacity for hard work.

At the academy, Ross had lowered his personal best for the 200m from 10.7 to 10.1 seconds. He had been a full-time rider before joining Fred but Ross had since grafted discipline onto his training. He told me it was important I showed the same application. I relished such seriousness. There would be no danger of me giving anything less than my very best to the academy.

Ross, in his laidback style, didn’t fuss over me. Later, when we went out together for a while, he admitted wryly that he might have done more to help me settle in Aigle. But Fred was charming and the regimented routine occupied most of our time. I soon learnt that, for example, we had to line up in a queue early every Wednesday so we could collect our clean sheets. We’d make our beds by 7am sharp.

Based in a hotel, which we shared with an international hotel school, the UCI cyclists lived in a series of rooms that stretched down a long corridor. The numbers fluctuated but, generally, there were between twelve and fifteen riders working under Fred. In contrast, almost two hundred students were registered on a course of hotel management and hospitality. We lived a different life to the aspiring hoteliers.

Every morning we caught a 7:30am train to our language lessons. We studied French while the other nationalities, including the Chinese girls, Li Na and Guo Shuang, were taught English. As we had to walk to the station, and did not dare miss the train, we set off early from the hotel, grabbing a quick breakfast on our way out. Snow had already fallen in November. I learnt quickly to rug up warmly, pull on my snow boots and make the slow trudge to the station. On the train we would vegetate for forty minutes, dozing or staring out of the window at the beautifully snowy landscape that flashed past in a blur.

At least Swiss French was spoken more slowly. I found it much simpler than ordinary French, which I had studied at school, and in the ninety-minute lessons our teachers concentrated on our conversational skills. I became braver the more I spoke in class. We were pushed hard to talk and I loved that rigorous cultural start to our day.

By 10 o’clock we were deep in a gruelling session of training, either on the track or in the gym. We were driven relentlessly and lunch came as some relief. The time-bound rituals then demanded that we would all take a communal sleep together after lunch. In the Salle de Repose, a large room in which Fred had ensured that mattresses were laid on the floor in the stark style of a Japanese dormitory, we were all expected to sleep like babies. I found it difficult when there were some loud snorers in the room and, even when I did fall asleep, I always felt terrible when we were woken at 2.30. It was like I had been shot with a tranquillizer gun. By 3pm, feeling jaded, we’d be back on our bikes. Each weekday was the same; and then every Saturday morning we all took a two-hour ride on the road.

Even here there were strict regulations. On the road you were only allowed to use the bottom three, smallest gears, irrespective of the speed of the group. I’d be pedalling flat out, knowing how much easier it would be if I could change gears. Fred, however, was usually around and he’d keep watch with regal scrutiny. Occasionally, at the back of the group, I’d sneak in a gear change just to taste the sweet relief.

My body was not accustomed to such intense training. It went into a state of shock during my first month in Aigle. I had never seen such big black bags under my eyes – which felt like they had sunk right into the back of my head. Luckily, we were allowed home for Christmas and I had a couple of weeks to recover.

Ross and I returned in early January. The snow lay thick on the ground and the cold up in the mountains began to bite. I worked hard and tried to keep warm as the temperatures dropped as low as minus 12. During training on the road, my face would be entirely covered as I huddled deeper into one of the red fleecy snoods Mum had knitted for me. It stretched over my nose while my eyes were hidden by shades that could not quite prevent ice crystals forming on my eyelashes. I also wore a thick headband and my helmet but, still, it felt as if the bitter cold had begun to eat away chunks of my face.

I felt anxious whenever we rode along the river and the path turned into a flat sheet of ice. We cycled in a straight line, in pairs, side-by-side, and we were fine as long as no-one braked or suddenly turned. Even a twitch of a wheel at the front could bring the whole pack of us down like a box of dominoes being spilled across the hard and clattering ice. Some of the Chinese cyclists were not as used to the road as me; and so I was always far happier when it was my turn at the front.

On the track, I struggled to match the pace of riders who were more accomplished and better drilled than me. Li and Guo were both incredibly strong. They were faster than me on the track and much more powerful in the gym. A few months earlier, at the World Championships, Li had won the keirin. Riding daily against a world champion, and having my times compared after every session to hers, was sobering.

I was used to training as a lone woman sprinter in Manchester but, in Aigle, I was surrounded. Apart from the Chinese girls, I raced against Canada’s Lori-Ann Muenzer, who had won two World Championship silver medals, and the American Jennie Reed, a recent World Cup bronze medallist.

Yvonne Hijgenaar was my age, twenty-two, but she was ahead of me. Apart from being the Dutch national sprint champion she had also reached the podium in the 500m at the previous summer’s European Championships – where I had ended up, instead, in the back of an ambulance. Hijgenaar was part of the Dutch squad that used Fred’s school as a training camp. Her compatriot, Theo Bos, had won three medals at those same championships and he strutted around Aigle with the certainty of a future multiple world champion. Teun Mulder, the third Dutch rider, had picked up a couple of medals at the Europeans and was also on his way to various future World Championship victories.

At different times there were riders from Belarus, Cuba, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, South Africa and Venezuela and I loved the mix of cultures and personalities. I became close to three male cyclists: Josiah Ng from Malaysia, Tsubasa Kitatsuru from Japan and Chung Yun-Hee from South Korea. I always enjoyed it when they showed me their magazines of popular culture, aimed at guys in the Far East, and we soon developed our own private code as we adapted to the rigours of Fred’s serious regime. Fred had once told Tsubasa that he was ‘stupid, stupid, stupid!’ and so we resorted to saying things in triplicate. Someone would say, ‘Ah, Tsubasa … is so stupid, stupid, stupid!’ and we’d fall around amid much hilarity. And if someone was feeling emotionally or physically weary they would resort to a similar quip as they said, ‘Today, me no power! No power! No power!’ The boys were fun and interesting to be around and helped me feel a little less lonely.

I also had daily banter at lunch with the Frenchman behind the counter in the canteen. He regularly tried to trick me into eating rabbit or veal – even though I always reminded him that, for me, both were off limits, alongside horse meat. I enjoyed French cuisine but I was an ardent animal-lover.

He thought this was hysterical and would point to another deep and steaming dish. ‘Poulet,’ he’d say with a sly grin.

His chicken looked suspiciously like rabbit. ‘Lapin?’ I said.

He smiled mysteriously at me, and then shook his head.

‘Cheval?’ I asked more pointedly.

‘Non!’ he would exclaim innocently. ‘Poulet!’

Every lunchtime we had a similar conversation and I’d end up laughing alongside him and choosing a safer option – which I would then eat happily alongside my new friends at Fred’s school. I would often look around and feel fortunate to be in such a beautiful setting, with so many diverse professional riders in a cosmopolitan environment. I also thought Fred was great and I ate up the work he gave me with enthusiasm and, gradually, resilience.

I was motivated by a need to try and keep up with the other women. Every time we went out on the track our individual times would be logged in the book, and compared by the whole group that same day. There were no secrets. Everyone knew who was flying and who was battling. I was always at the back of the battlers, clinging on for dear life to the rest of them. It felt as if they were miles ahead of me. In the gym it was even more clear-cut. I could not lift the weights most of the women hoisted effortlessly.

My only advantage on the track lay in my superior leg-speed, while on the road I was more efficient and grittier during longer rides. All those years of chasing Dad had, at last, given me some benefit.

The months slipped past and I remained at the bottom of the timed track efforts. My lack of confidence was apparent. I was disappointed not to qualify in the sprint in my first two World Cups as an Aigle student riding in GB colours. Travelling full of hope from Switzerland, I would then arrive at a competition feeling suddenly weary and edgy. My qualifying times were never quite quick enough. I felt deflated; but the excellence of Fred’s coaching team and his managerial skills meant that I still savoured the training.

Gradually I could feel a new strength coursing through me, even if my results did not yet reflect that sense. Tangible proof only emerged during extended training races on the track. My slight build offered some reward here. I tired much less quickly than the bigger girls whose bulkier muscle-mass made them more subject to fatigue over distances exceeding 500m. Small victories in training provided reassurance that, slowly, I was moving forwards.

As late winter turned into a gorgeous spring in Switzerland, the daily routine barely shifted. But, deep inside the same pattern, I concentrated on developing my qualifying speed. My times on the track quickened. Something was stirring. I kept working.

The 2003 World Championships were held in Stuttgart that summer. I took a huge step forward, finishing fourth in the sprint behind the winner Svetlana Grankovskaya, Natallia Tsylinskaya and Mexico’s Nancy Contreras. Outside of the tight-knit training circle in Aigle, and my GB camp, everyone else in track cycling was astonished by my apparently sudden leap into the final four.

William Fotheringham, in the Guardian, was a more generous observer. Already looking ahead to the following summer’s Olympic Games in Athens, Fotheringham suggested, on Monday 4 August 2003, that ‘these World Championships, which finished yesterday, are merely the beginning, not an end in themselves … Perhaps the most encouraging portent for Athens was the surprise emergence of a world-class woman sprinter, Victoria Pendleton, who was narrowly beaten yesterday by Nancy Contreras in the ride-off for the bronze medal in only the fourth sprint series of her career. She has spent this year at the International Cycling Union’s track racing academy in Aigle, Switzerland, and has clearly proved an able pupil.’

More suspicious glances were shot my way, and dark mutterings were mouthed, by those who knew little of my work with Frédéric Magné. To them, the only answer for my improvement had to be found in doping. It didn’t bother me. The veiled innuendos told me how well I had done.

I had nothing to fear, being utterly clean, and so I peed cheerfully into every drug-tester’s little vial. I knew that none of the testers or the doubters had seen the journey I had taken over the last nine months.

They had not seen me rise from my bed early every morning. They had not seen me work hard as I tried my heart out against superior and more experienced riders like Li Na – who successfully defended her keirin world title. They had not seen me riding alongside Theo Bos in the build-up to him arriving in Stuttgart, where he won bronze in the kilo behind Arnaud Tournant of France and Chris Hoy.

Great Britain gained a second gold medal when Brad Wiggins swept to victory in the individual pursuit. The men won two more medals in the team pursuit and sprint events – and we finished fourth in the table. Russia were first, with four golds, but we had won one more than Australia and the Meares sisters who, for once, were not seen on the podium.

I smiled demurely when I handed my last warm specimen of urine to the waiting dope tester. If this was the kind of rigmarole foisted onto the world’s fourth-best sprinter, I could get used to it.

‘Danke schoen,’ I said in my very best Swiss-German accent.

My hard-won progress had been noted by Dave Brailsford and Shane Sutton. They knew Fred Magné was keen for me to stay on in Aigle for another year; and British cycling was prepared to fund an extended stay at a sprinting academy that might inspire me to a realistic tilt at an Olympic medal in Athens.

If it was difficult for me to think of myself as a potential podium cyclist, Peter Keen, who would soon become performance director at UK Sport, was emphatic about my prospects. I could hardly believe his words when, on the second last day of the year, my mum pressed an article into my hands. It was from the Guardian, on 30 December 2003, in an article headlined:

Young, gifted and on track to make headlines in the coming year: Coaches and experts from 12 sports name their top tips to make a breakthrough in 2004.

The chosen dozen included the cricketers Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara, the gymnast Beth Tweedle and the footballer Andy Reid. Graham Saville, described as England’s youth guru and a member of the Essex County Cricket Club committee, considered the credentials of Cook who, then, was only eighteen: ‘Cooky scored a fifty in each of his first three matches for our first team. He’s a talented cricketer and I’m told he was a very good singer – a leading chorister at St Paul’s cathedral, apparently, until his voice broke.’

Lewis Hamilton was the penultimate name on the list of twelve. He was nominated by Martin Whitmarsh, the Managing Director of McLaren, who wrote of his ‘unusual talent’.

I was last on the list. Reading the words, I had tears in my eyes, hardly daring to believe that anyone could show such faith in my future:

Peter Keen, British Olympic coach: ‘Victoria Pendleton is the fastest emerging British cyclist in my book, with another sprinter, the Scot Ross Edgar, not far behind. She is 23 and will be pitching for a medal in the women’s sprint and 500m time trial. She was fourth and seventh in those events in the World Championships, but her rate of improvement is so fast and the gaps are so tight that if she goes 0.2 seconds faster it starts to look interesting. Vicky is bright, learns quickly and has natural speed and power that have only come through since she’s put in the strength training. Superficially she looks fragile, but she’s incredibly determined. She’s a complete sprinter now, and 2004 could be her year.’

It’s hard to tell how I got from there to here. I’m sitting on my bed, in my bare room, down an anonymous corridor at the hotel in Aigle, Switzerland, which doubles as the base for Frédéric Magné’s and the International Cycling Union’s racing academy. There is a Swiss Army knife on the white pillow. It has a bright red grip and two sharp blades of differing lengths. It also contains, at the flick of a wrist, a corkscrew, a can opener, a wire stripper, a key-ring, tweezers and a small pair of shiny scissors. The longest blade fills my gaze. I have been here before. I know what I need to do to make a new pain which will feel more clean and honest than the knotted mess inside me.

This year, 2004, has not been easy. It has been confusing and distressing. There have been a few uplifting moments. I won my first World Cup, in the individual sprint in Manchester in April. But there was also frustration. My Manchester victory was meant to be the perfect launch for a big breakthrough in the World Championships in Melbourne the following month. I qualified eighth fastest and then beat Yvonne Hijgenaar in the first round, Clara Sanchez, the French rider, next, before, in the quarter-finals, defeating Tsylinskaya, who had won the World title two years before. In the semi-final I faced the defending champion from Russia – Grankovskaya. It was a disaster. Adjudged to have crossed the line, and moved out of my designated racing area into Grankovskaya’s lane, I was relegated from the race and consigned to a scrap for the bronze medal.

As my mood dipped, so my desire wavered. I lost both third-place races to Lori-Ann Muenzer – who I knew so well from Fred’s academy. Lori-Ann had turned thirty-eight the week before and I felt dispirited that I had lost a World Championship medal to a rider who was fifteen years older than me. Even worse than that, when we shook hands on our bikes soon after crossing the finish line, Lori-Ann held mine and, with a smile, said: ‘You will always be a princess – but you will never be queen.’

From the stands people would have only seen her smiling at me as we completed our warm-down lap. In calling me ‘a princess’, she seemed to be implying that I was spoilt and pampered. I knew that she received no support from her academy in Canada while British Cycling paid for my entire stay in Aigle. But there was something else in her barbed comment. I felt Lori-Ann looked down on my kind of femininity. She had short and spiky blonde hair, with lots of piercings, and she was assertive and relatively intimidating. I had tried initially to befriend her but I found her closed and even cold towards me. Our relationship had not improved whenever I rode much more quickly than her up the mountains – as the climbing suited my smaller frame. Yet I was still shocked and even distressed by her taunting of me as a princess on the track.

After eighteen months of training under Fred I did not seem to be making the progress I should have done. In my depressed mood I considered fourth place at the Worlds a failure – as it repeated the same finish from the previous year in Stuttgart.

Grankovskaya defeated Anna Meares in a close final, by two races to one, but the younger Australian was a clear star in Melbourne. Her sister, Kerrie, was still out of competition with a back injury but Anna, just three days shy of being exactly three years younger than me, followed silver in the sprint with gold in the 500m time trial. I finished a lowly ninth. I was losing to riders both older and younger than me. It was hard to ignore the beaming joy of Martin Barras and the happy tears of the Meares sisters.

‘I’m ecstatic,’ Anna told the press corps after she had completed a lap of honour, draped in the Australian flag and acclaimed by tumultuous applause. ‘I probably didn’t expect a result like this. I thought it would be another year or two away. But Martin changed my training programme in the lead-up. We went back to the basic building blocks then trained me up for this. But I can’t tell you what we did. That’s a secret.’

I didn’t really care about the secret training routine of Anna Meares and Martin Barras. I just wanted to get the hell out of Melbourne and back to Aigle where, I hoped, Fred Magné would lift me out of my fourth-placed rut. I wanted to be like Chris Hoy, who had again won the kilo at the Worlds, or Theo Bos, the men’s new world sprint champion. I needed Fred to galvanize me.

Fred was cool and charismatic. He was also friendly towards me but, increasingly, I noticed how different he was around Ross. ‘Oh,’ Fred always laughed, ‘Ross is my favourite.’

I also loved Ross. He was great. But, secretly, I envied the relationship he had with Fred. They were able to kid around, and make each other laugh. Even more significantly, Fred went out of his way to boost Ross and to make him realize how much he had progressed. I wished Fred could believe in me as much as he believed in Ross. I knew I was being petty and so I never said a word to anyone. I just pedalled away, silently, hoping that one day I would be good enough to be called Fred’s favourite. I was so insecure and vulnerable, and in such desperate need of being liked, that those confusing thoughts tightened inside me.

Logically, disappointment at remaining in fourth place in successive World Championships was a healthy sign of my raised expectations. But the pride I had felt in Copenhagen and Stuttgart, at my first two World Championships, had soured in Melbourne. I felt stuck – and emotionally blocked.

My problems had started months before Melbourne. I guess they really began when, early in 2004, I resolved to prove to Fred that I was worthy of his highest praise. It seemed to me that, unlike most of my rivals, I lacked core strength. I had studied core stability at university and thought I’d include some additional abdominal exercises in the gym. Determined to pull myself up from the same static level and, having a degree in Sports Science, I considered myself sufficiently qualified to decide whether another set of work on my abs would be of benefit.

However, as I soon learnt, the regimented order of Fred’s training programmes meant that any deviation or change was discouraged. Someone told Fred. They dobbed me in – as I might have said if I was still a teenage schoolgirl. Fred called me into his office. ‘What’s the matter with the programme I give you?’ he asked angrily.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I just thought I was being proactive …’

‘No,’ Fred said cuttingly. ‘You’re being disrespectful to the programme – and to me.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘I should have asked for your permission.’

‘You should respect me more …’ Fred said coldly.

I was mortified. My respect for Fred ran so deep that I ached for his approval. I could not believe that, instead, I had unleashed his disdain. In a recurring theme of my youth I had always feared letting down figures of authority, my dad most of all, and so I felt diminished by disappointing Fred.

Later that week, at the end of a hard training phase, I was literally blowing after a morning on the track. I felt finished. That sense of deep fatigue disturbed me. I needed to work still harder. So the next morning, I added another ten minutes on the rollers before breakfast. I thought my body needed it; and it was just a way of getting a sweat on before the day’s real work began.

Again, someone chose to report me to Fred. I was called once more into his office and, this time, he tore strips off me. I had never been chastised so severely. Dad might have used his silent treatment on me, when I was a girl, but this was different. Fred ripped into me.

‘Not only did you do this once,’ he said furiously. ‘You did it twice. I cannot believe you would do this again!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said in a familiar echo. ‘I’m just not thinking straight.’

Fred was unrelenting and I felt terrible. Our relationship deteriorated from that point. He doubted my integrity. How come, he seemed to ask every time I spoke to him, I was the only person at the academy who felt the need to disregard a programme he had planned so methodically? My apologies could not change anything. It felt as if something had broken between us.

I spent many hours in my room, alone, feeling an outcast. Castigating myself for letting down Fred, I questioned my own worth. It got worse. I cried to myself and became still more withdrawn. The hurt inside me was like a raw wound. I needed to take my mind away from such a dark place.

At first I just stuck my fingernails into the skin of my palms. It was not enough. I needed the next step. I felt like hitting myself. I was that low and stupid. I wanted to bruise myself as a kind of penance. I know men sometimes punch walls in frustration. They even crack their skull against the bricks to draw blood. It’s violent and it’s angry but it offers some kind of release.

I didn’t feel violent or angry. I just felt desperately sad and unworthy. I felt the urge to mark myself.

The first time, before Melbourne, I used the knife almost thoughtlessly. I did not sit down and decide, consciously, to cut myself. It was almost as if, instead, I slipped into a trance. I held the Swiss Army knife in my right hand, feeling the solid weight, as if it promised something beyond the empty ache inside me.

A shiny blade traced a faint line on the pale skin of my left arm. It didn’t hurt, as I had yet to add any pressure. The slight indentation was at least three inches above my wrist. I had no wish to cause myself lasting damage; and there was no thought of me using the knife to open up the blue veins in my wrists.

I did not want to kill myself. I just wanted to feel something different.

Pressing down harder I had a sudden urge to make myself bleed.

The cut, when it came, did not really hurt. It was a sharp and clean sensation. I only drew a little breath at the sight of a thin line of blood. It was a tracer of my shame. After staring at the cut for perhaps a minute, seeing how it opened just a little wider as the blood trickled from the sliced gash, I cut myself again. I pressed harder and deeper and, this time, I felt it more plainly.

My skin opened up like a peach. The blood looked very red. It flowed more quickly.

I felt calm. It was not a bad cut and the bleeding soon stopped, taking away some of the pain inside. My arm stung a little but, mostly, numbness spread through me.

The next morning, waking early for training, I looked down at the red lines running down my arm. One looked much angrier than the other but, as I pulled on a long-sleeve top to hide the scars, I could not really regret what I had done. It had happened and, for a while, it had helped. I put it out of my mind.

It happened again, and again, and each time the same soothing numbness spread through me.

So here I am, once more, post-Melbourne, reaching for the same Swiss Army knife. I hold it in my hand. It carries the usual comforting weight. I look around me. The walls in my room are white and clinical – and very different to the redness of the cutting. I think of the gorgeous scenery outside. I know how lucky I am. I am living and working in a place of remarkable beauty. Other people are paying for me to ride a bike around in endless circles. I am fortunate. I love the training. The pain of pushing myself hard satisfies me. I relish the gruelling work.

Knowing how lucky I am, that my problems are so trivial compared to the trauma that people all around the world face every day, I feel ashamed. I don’t want to be weak. I don’t want to be self-indulgent.

I know the truth. I am not starving. I am not in a war zone. I am not being tortured. I am free from persecution and injustice. I am a white, middle-class twenty-three-year-old English girl from the Home Counties. I am in the midst of an opportunity of a lifetime. What right do I have to feel so bereft?

The question goes round my head as if, like me, it’s riding a bike in circles on a wooden track.

I think of Fred, and his disappointment in me, his certainty that I no longer respect him. I feel, again, worthless and useless.

In my bad moments I have sometimes managed to ward off the need to cut myself. I turn to a cutting instead, with Peter Keen choosing me as his sporting figure to watch in 2004. I keep it in a slim plastic wallet. Now, trying to be rational, I put the knife down. I hold the plastic wallet in my hands and, through the shiny surface, I re-read some of Peter’s words about me:

Vicky is bright, learns quickly and has natural speed and power that have only come through since she’s put in the strength training. Superficially she looks fragile, but she’s incredibly determined. She’s a complete sprinter now, and 2004 could be her year.

I am determined. I know it. I’ve been determined since those early Sunday mornings when, chasing Dad up a hill, I pedalled hard until it felt like my heart would burst. I never lost sight of Dad. But I not only look fragile. I am fragile. I feel as if I could crack and splinter into hundreds of pieces.

Peter Keen’s sentences blur beneath the plastic. I don’t feel bright or speedy or powerful or strong. I don’t feel like a complete sprinter. I feel like a wreck. I feel like a waste of space.

I put down the plastic wallet. I pick up the knife. I know I am about to cut myself again.

Calmly and coolly, I go to work. I open up my skin. I am careful to avoid any veins. I don’t want anyone to know what I do in the sanctuary of my room with a trusty Swiss army knife.

I start to bleed and, with the blood, the pain seeps out of me. I cut myself again, for the last time. I watch the redness trickle out of me and I wait. I want to feel different. I want to feel better.

The following morning, I again wear a long-sleeved top to hide the signs of my inner strife. Fred does not live in the hotel with the rest of us but, still, I instinctively know it’s best to keep my personal choice secret from everyone else. I don’t want to think about the cutting in the day. It’s only sometimes, on rare occasions at night, when I bring out the knife.

Today, I turn up for breakfast and reach the train and the track on time. I am about to pull on my helmet when Fred sees me. His gaze lingers on my lower left wrist. I see him staring. The bottom cuts are visible.

‘What’s happened?’ he asks, in surprise.

‘Nothing,’ I say quickly, as I move towards my bike.

‘Aren’t you hot?’ he asks, pointing to my long sleeves on an early summer day.

‘No,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘Don’t worry …’

I turn away before he can look more closely. It feels the same as when I speak to my mum on the phone – only it’s less graphic. On the phone, calling home, it’s easier to put on a brave face. Mum can’t see me. I speak to her in a deliberately bright voice. I tell her that I’m working hard, that everything’s alright.

‘Are you sure, Lou?’ Mum asks. ‘Are you looking after yourself?’

Every time I tell her that I’m fine – just a little bit tired from the training. I don’t want Mum to worry.

I also, really, do not want Fred to worry. My issues with the knife belong to me alone.

I’m on my bike and down the banked wooden tier of the track before we can talk more.

Slowly, I circle the track again. My arms are covered. My head is helmeted and lowered. My legs turn. Round and round I go, picking up speed as I pedal.

I’m on my own, going nowhere fast.

A visitor comes to see me in Aigle. Steve Peters is a grey-haired man. His face is kind and warm. I like him the instant his hand takes mine. Dave Brailsford, the new head of British Cycling, asked Steve to fly to Switzerland. Steve is a psychiatrist. But I can see, immediately, that he is a man before he is a doctor. Compassion and understanding pour out of him even before I begin to talk to him.

I melt into his company. He explains that they were worried about me. Fred had suggested to Dave that I was struggling. Steve wants to help me. His whole life is built upon his desire to help people.

Steve asks me a few routine questions and, within five minutes of meeting him, I am hunched over in tears. It feels as if I cannot stop crying. I cannot answer the simplest questions that Steve has asked. One of the first, delivered in a quiet and gentle voice, invited me to list my qualities. I am mute, but for the crying. I am silent, but for the crying. I am empty, but for the crying.

Then, changing tack with sensitivity, Steve turns his attention away from me. He asks me about my family. We stumble over the imposing figure of my father. I haven’t even begun to tell him about the girl on the hill. But it feels as if Steve already knows. Steve can read me like a book he has just opened.

The words and sentences and pages about me are brought to life in his head. Steve Peters reads me. He understands me. Steve starts talking about me as if the truth is written all over my scrunched-up face.

I look at Steve, through the blurring tears, and I say, ‘Oh my God, this is so embarrassing …’

He smiles back at me. It’s his way of telling me that we need to move beyond embarrassment.

I’m still shocked. How can a man who has just met me know the secrets I’ve lodged inside myself for so many years? Am I that transparent? Am I that exposed?

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Steve murmurs. ‘I’m not here to judge you.’

He waits and then, after I have nodded my grateful understanding, he says six words of salvation.

‘I am here to help you …’

Later, Steve and I look back at our first meeting in Aigle. He tells me then how proud I make him feel. Steve says that when he meets people who are vulnerable, or damaged, it’s important that they should want to change their lives. Some people, Steve suggests, are happy living a life of misery. I am not one of those people. I want to get better. I’m tired of the guilt and the feelings of worthlessness. I want to feel more hopeful about myself. I want to improve – as a cyclist and, more importantly, as a person.

I trust Steve and so, together, we start to unravel the darkness within me. He becomes my friend, rather than a psychiatrist. I talk to Steve and I listen to him.

And so, when we know each other well, Steve tells me the truth about his return to Manchester in May 2004. He flew back from Geneva and, at the velodrome, Dave Brailsford pressed him. The Olympic Games in Athens were just over two months away. Could Steve have me ready to chase down a medal?

Steve looked at Dave and shook his head. ‘It’s going to take more than a few months,’ he said of his aim to make me better. He knew he was right about me. ‘This is going to take a very long time to sort out – at least a year. Maybe longer. There’s no quick fix. This girl has serious issues.’