For a second year in a row, Mike Townley and Dad had been busy writing, with highly detailed and well-formed arguments being made in my case against British Cycling, but UK Sport had been intransigent for many months, continuing to back the BC position. We had to ask our local MP Wyn Griffiths to get involved and he spoke to the Minister for Sport and met with the CEO of UK Sport, Richard Callicott. Critical to all this was the discovery of an email sent by Alison Livesey, Peter Keen’s PA, in late 2002 confirming BC WCPP support for me during the 2003 season when it was known that I was at Acca Due O – exactly as Peter Keen and I had verbally agreed earlier. This written confirmation totally undermined the position that Peter and British Cycling had adopted since the time of the Tony Blair reception in late November. Dad sent a series of recorded delivery letters to UK Sport. Within 24 hours, UK Sport put out a press release announcing that Peter Keen had resigned as performance director of British Cycling, later taking up a post with the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.
Following Peter’s departure, I much appreciated the fact that Liz Nicholl, the director of UK Sport Elite Performance, took the time to ring me up to confirm that they had changed the decision and would be asking the BC WCPP to support me and that they would be backing me all the way to Athens. While I was left entirely confident that at least UK Sport would be supporting me, I worried about the legacy of another major clash with BC management. I had a wry smile when, in the lead-up to London 2012, Dave Brailsford stated that it was very important to get the key riders in the same trade team for the run-up to the Olympics. In that case, it was all the GB male riders at Team Sky. Nine years earlier the official line was quite different.
I was always confident in Mike and Dad representing my case to success, but I was so sad that in all the posturing and hubris, a golden opportunity had been lost. What would have happened if, exactly as planned, Rachel Heal had ridden alongside me at Acca Due O for the 2003 season? As it was, Rachel developed very well through the year to become the clear No.2 GB rider. However, we didn’t work together in races. What could we have achieved had we both been riding together on the same team, working every day, sharing tactics and practising them together in race after race? Others could have joined us for the following season. Frustratingly, 2003 had been yet another year when no junior girls were sent to the World Championships. Where was the support that really mattered?
Liz Nicholl also took the time to ring Dad and ask his opinion about the way ahead for cycling and the WCPP. Dad offered his opinion that Dave Brailsford would make an excellent replacement for Peter Keen. Whether this had any bearing on the decision we will never know, but we were delighted with the appointment and the working relationship soon improved. Dave introduced many changes to the way the WCPP operated and had many long conversations with my father about operating methods, although Dave was always his own person and made his own decisions. Another topic of conversation was the situation regarding the use of performance enhancing drugs in cycling. I have recorded most elements relevant to this issue in one chapter. However, relevant to the timeline is that Dad was relating my experiences and concerns to Dave, and foremost was the need to address the fact that cycling was just one of two major sports that had failed to sign up to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code. The sport continued to pay lip service to addressing what was the key issue to its future.
Meanwhile, I happily reconfirmed my contract at Acca Due O for another year. Maurizio was only running a single team this year. As British Cycling had embraced the idea of WCPP riders joining continental teams, I asked if he could find a place for any other GB girls. The answer was a definite no; he couldn’t forget how he was messed about the previous year. I can’t say I blamed him. Thankfully, Rachel was able to negotiate a place with Dutch team Farm Frites for 2004.
In the meantime I was invited to attend the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. They did a terrific piece with Lance Armstrong, who had notched up Tour win number five. The lengthy eulogy was effusive, as they awarded him BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year. Sunday Times journalist David Walsh’s excellent book, LA Confidential, was still one year away at this time. That book recorded what many of us in the sport suspected. Days before the show, I had sent out an open email to all the girls on the WCPP urging them to support and actively participate in a voluntary programme of out-of-competition drugs testing by British Cycling of its athletes. Dad had spoken to Dave about introducing this and he needed strong support for this worthwhile initiative. At the time, the cheats were obviously winning by a large margin.
Gasping for the little oxygen left after so much programme time was spent genuflecting before Lance, the main domestic cycling story at SPOTY was David Millar’s win in the World time-trial at Hamilton. Just like with Lance and Genevieve Jeanson, we were all later to have it confirmed that Millar’s was the ‘drug assisted’ performance it appeared to be. To rub salt into the wound, for the ten seconds that they decided to speak about my performances for the year, which included being the youngest-ever and first British winner of the season-long World Cup – in fact no home-developed rider, male or female, had ever won a single round – they showed a picture, not of me, but of Jeannie Longo, the rather generous clue being the word ‘FRANCE’ on the side of the kit. It was bad enough that they showed the wrong picture, but even worse when Dad didn’t notice!
It was late 2003 and time to get back training. The hills around Wick are quiet at the best of times, but as autumn turns to winter they become almost deserted. I was looking forward to those long winter rides which would allow me to build the foundation for next year’s racing. On my first ride over the Bwlch, after about 90 minutes, I started to get a niggle in my left knee. This came and went. It then became more persistent. As the ride reached the three-hour mark, my knee was very painful, I eased up, pedalling gently as I crept home.
I rang the BC doctor in Manchester who directed me to Dr Rod Jaques at the English Institute of Sport Medical Centre in Bath for appraisal. We reviewed everything that had happened since July 2003. Rod asked if there were any other accidents; I mentioned my painful foot after going over on my ankle when getting out of the campervan in Holland, so Rod arranged an MRI scan and some x-rays. The scan showed that the bone bruising on the left knee had improved, but there was a problem in the plica membrane (the remnants of foetal tissue in the knee), which serves little useful purpose in the normal function of the knee but can be debilitating if it becomes irritated. And mine was very inflamed. Then, he put the x-ray up on the screen and showed me a very obvious fracture on the outside of my left foot. The bones were clearly displaced. My eyes popped out of my head. That incident going over on my ankle when stepping out of the campervan had caused the break. I had ridden out the end of the season, including the World Championships, with a broken bone in my foot.
The puzzle was why my knee had flared up now. The diagnosis was that I was over-compensating for the fracture in my foot and putting extra stress on the knee that eventually led to the inflammation of the plica membrane. When sightseeing with Rochelle in San Francisco during the GP event, it was obvious I was walking with a limp and favouring one leg. Now, seeing the x-ray, I realised I had been compensating for the injury for months. The solution was, firstly, rest and then a rehabilitation programme with physiotherapist Chris Price. Cycling was out for the time being. The staff encouraged me – it was only November, so time was on my side. I looked at the clock on the wall. I heard it tick.
I concentrated on work in the gym, strengthening the stabilising the muscles around the knee. Some weeks later, when I got back on the bike to go for my second training ride of the off-season, within an hour the pain in my knee had flared up once more. I stopped all riding again and gave it a rest, before building up slowly, starting with shorter rides and then hoping to get to the four- and five-hour rides. But each time, once I got to around one hour, the same thing happened, my knee hurt and I couldn’t ride. On Christmas Eve, I went back to see Rod and Chris in Bath where we devised a new strategy based on doing shorter rides to try to train up to a point that would not irritate and further damage the knee. It would be an even slower build-up and there were no guarantees. There was no ready answer as to why it was not responding to the rest and rehabilitation.
At Bath they gave me a large exercise ball and I spent Christmas Day using my new present in the lounge doing the stretching and rehabilitation exercises I had been set. It had been over two months since I had last completed a single decent training ride, the longest period of not riding so far in my life. I was on the eve of what might be my greatest season ever. I had a good team, British Cycling had a new director of the WCPP, around me things looked better than they had ever been – and I couldn’t ride my bike. On 31 December, the clocks all struck midnight. Early the next morning, Dad drove me to Bath for our 9am appointment with the team there. My Olympic year had arrived.
Finally, I could now get back on my bike. I was to do three short rides rather than my one long endurance ride each day. Every time I went out, I held back from sprinting for a ‘30’ speed-limit sign or charging up a hill, in case I aggravated my knee. This was not the training I had done for the last two winters which had resulted in a successful start to the season.
Despite my 2003 success, I had received little coverage in the British media. They were being fed press releases from the British Cycling press office, who were more focused on the male riders, especially the track riders who were total products of the WCPP. This was a fact of life. The Olympics were different. Once every four years, exploits would be seen by the public at face value, rather than metered out according to unnatural bias. The nation’s mums and dads and budding stars would see me, not ten seconds of a French rider. This was the year I needed to be at my best. I was on the countdown to my ‘high noon’ in August, and I was forced into a much tamed-down version of the training programme that I knew I needed. Each room in the house had a clock and each one of those clocks seemed to have developed a very loud tick that I had never heard before. Why was this happening to me now? I was beginning to get a clear insight into why caged tigers pace up and down and are so angry. Mum and Dad learnt to put the tops on toothpaste tubes every time; and certainly every cereal packet now had the lid folded back on properly.
The days went by, the clocks marking every single second. By late January I was, at last, tackling some of the longer routes over the hills, albeit at a very steady pace, so in early February I decided to take part in the annual 100-mile ‘reliability’ trial organised by the Cardiff Ajax. I had taken part in the event a few times before, but this time, after about only an hour, the niggling pain in my knee started again. As I rode on, it gradually got worse and I soon came to realise there was no way I would complete the course. I waved goodbye to my club-mates as they continued. The Olympic prospect got off her bike in Abergavenny, from where she phoned home from the town’s leisure centre. That was one very long wait in which the helplessness of my situation was thrown into deep contrast with the opportunities ahead. Dad arrived an hour later. It was a quiet drive home. I visited the medical team at Bath, where ‘rest’ was the only prescription.
I flew to Cornuda to join the team in mid-February. This had been planned long ago and for the ‘caged tiger’ it was a release. I had kept in contact with Maurizio and he assured me that the team doctor was used to treating this sort of injury. It seemed the right thing to do; I would be at Nonna’s big, happy house and in a cycling environment, and on top of that I would have Italian sunshine rather than Welsh winds and rain.
A few days later, we had the team presentation where our new name was unveiled, Safi-Pasta Zara. This year our wine sponsor, Astoria, produced a bottle of Prosecco with my picture from the Plouay victory on the label. Once again, Maurizio was celebrating in style.
Italian cycling sponsors were typically the medium- and small-size companies on which Italy is built. The sponsors of famous men’s teams like Mapei, Fassa Bortolo and Saeco were from this category. Maurizio, bless his heart, had decided that he didn’t have enough money to sponsor a men’s team, but having gone into women’s racing he was totally committed. He did not jump in and out each season but tried to keep a consistency over the years. Of course, although there were other sponsors, he put in significant sponsorship from his own company. It was his team and so he made the key decisions. This is why he could turn up on the eve of a big race and decide to change the team. At times this behaviour could be maddeningly frustrating, and like many males with a group of females, he had his favourites, but we knew that he was really passionate for the team to do the best.
The physiotherapy and swimming programme devised by Maurizio’s doctor seemed to be working, as I did short training rides through February and into early March. Maurizio accepted that I was going to miss some of the early races, but it would all be worth it if I could be strong and healthy again in time for the Giro in July and Athens in August. The plan was to travel with the team to the Primavera Rosa, the second round of the World Cup, where I would not race but ride the course as a training run. I would then travel with the team to Spain for the next World Cup round, the Castilla y Leon, where I would ride. His logic was that I could not risk starting a race in Italy and failing, but doing so a long way away in Spain would be less noticeable.
Another of my team-mates, Zita Urbonaite, was also having a slow start to the season and therefore was not riding the Primavera Rosa. We set off together to ride the course an hour or so before the race started, so we would be at the finish before the riders arrived. I was barely 20km into the ride when my knee started hurting. I knew from experience that once it had started hurting in a ride, it never got better. There was still 100km to the finish, so Zita went on by herself while I turned around and rode gingerly back to the start, arriving back at the campervan just as the others were leaving for the race. I put on a brave face and brushed away their concern, but as soon as the others left I sat in the back of the campervan and alone, where no one could see me, started to cry.
The Italian rehab plan had also failed. I rang Mum and Dad, got a flight home and Dad took me to Bath where again we tried another variation on the rehab plan, which allowed for periods of training but, inevitably, we ended up back at square one. By April, I was desperate. It had been more than five months since the problem was diagnosed, there was no real improvement, and it was now just four months until the Olympics. Mum and Dad did their best to cheer me up on my 21st birthday. All I could hear was the crashing sound of the clocks marking out each second.
Then a new option emerged – surgery. The plica membrane, or at least some of it, would apparently have to be removed because it must have become ‘pinched’ by the kneecap, causing an irritation that was perhaps thickening the membrane, making it more likely to be pinched again and inflamed in a vicious cycle. The specialists insisted it was possible to have the surgery and be ready for August, but could I really be racing to win by then? There was so much unknown, and it wasn’t just the Olympics at stake but now my whole career. When I explained the decision to have surgery, Maurizio was very supportive and said all the right things, but I sensed a trace of resignation in his voice. I could understand his position. His star rider had missed all the early season classics. The World Cup was already lost, surgery meant a gamble and those sorts of gambles for high-performance athletes do not have a great track record of success. I vowed to myself that if I could come back, I would come back stronger than ever. Surgery was set for 13 May with Dr Jonathan Webb, the former England rugby full-back.
I was less than an hour in the operating theatre. The first thing I did when I woke up a couple of hours later was to clench my quads to check if my massively swollen knee was still attached. Jonathan assured me that it had gone well and gave me a DVD of the keyhole surgery. It made ghoulish and difficult viewing. There was the white membrane and then from the edge of the shot, these crocodile-like clippers appear and snip the membrane into pieces and away from the joint where it had been continuously pinched and causing me pain. Next to enter the show was a miniature vacuum cleaner thing, sucking up all the white bits. It looked disgusting. Would it work? I had to lie down and do nothing. I had to wait.
Within a week, I was doing rehab work and back on the bike, riding in the countryside around Bath where I was now based so that I could see the medical team for regular check-ups. Soon I was even able to test my knee with sprints. Eureka! The surgery had worked – in every training session after that I was planning my comeback. By early June, the medical team gave me the all clear. I was back in Cornuda pleading with Maurizio to let me ride the Giro d’Italia. Maurizio, understandably, wasn’t so sure, and suggested that I tackle the shorter Giro di Trentino before making a decision.
I was certain of my plan. Instead of racing in Trentino, which for once was a flat course and therefore a waste in terms of preparation for the mountainous Giro, I wanted to train more specifically for the Giro and in particular for the most critical climb, the Passo del Ghisallo. This was on the penultimate day and would undoubtedly be the decisive stage if the leader’s jersey was still in contention. ‘Maurizio, I need to train for that stage. I need to train for that climb.’ Dearest to his passionate Italian heart were the great Italian cycle races, the Giro and the Primavera Rosa. To Maurizio these were beyond any Olympic medal. He had never had a winner in the Giro, Diana achieving a second place in 2001 being the closest the team had ever come. The counter was obvious. If he agreed to my plan, it meant that he would give me one of the seven precious places in the team built around supporting Diana in her bid to win the race this year. I would get just one race outing before the Giro to prove my form – the British Championships. My last race had been in October the previous year.
Maurizio probably thought I was mad but eventually agreed, and while the rest of the team went to Trentino, I trained alone in the mountains before heading back to Wales for the British Championships. The course was the same as the previous year, and this time I felt very strong and won alone by nearly three minutes. Looking back, this was the most emphatic and dominating win of all my ten British road titles. In terms of competition, second-placed Rachel was now firmly based on the continent, and with a stage win to her credit in the Tour de L’Aude she was now performing at a level well beyond that seen by the other British girls for a long time. As I came up to the finish, I gave my left knee a big kiss. I jumped up onto the podium and took my one prize and one jersey. Back home that night after the race, I noticed something strange. The clocks all seemed remarkably quiet. The next day, I flew back to Italy, where my second race in eight months would be the Giro d’Italia.
The women’s Giro d’Italia is the most prestigious stage race on the women’s calendar, first held in 1988 and still running now. For 2004, there was no women’s Tour de France, with accusation and counter accusation flying between organiser Pierre Boué, the French Cycling Federation and the UCI. Beyond organisational difficulties, it was obvious that cycling in France had been shaken to its foundations since the Festina revelations of 1998. The French cycling media and population did not appear to be as gullible as many elsewhere in accepting the story of Lance Armstrong’s unbelievable rise. With waning interest, sponsors were lost. While the men’s Tour had more margin for loss, events already operating at their limit were sunk. Women’s cycling in France crumbled away.
So the 2004 edition of the Giro was undoubtedly the star in the calendar that year. It was to be held over ten consecutive days, without break, and as always included some of the fiercest climbs. Favourite would be Fabiana Luperini, a four-time winner supported by a very strong Let’s Go Finland team which included Priska Doppmann and Zulfiya Zabirova. Another strong contender was the previous year’s winner, Nicole Brandli, riding for the Michela Fanini team, who also had a very strong team-mate in Edita Pucinskaite, who had won three medals at road World Championships including the title in 1999 and the Tour de France. And of course there was Joane Somarriba, who with no race in France to defend would view this as the worthy alternative. Other strong riders included Susanne Ljungskog, Zinaida Stahurskaya, Mirjam Melchers, Russian Svetlana Bubnenkova and Oenone Wood with a good Australian team.
Safi-Pasta Zara fielded Diana Ziliute as the historical favourite and rider with current form. We also had Regina Schleicher as the team sprinter targetting a couple of flat stage wins. In a world of my own, I felt frustrated that I was not the obvious team leader, but I was saved from most of the domestique duties, with Maurizio going with my plan to get me to the penultimate stage in contention. Then on the climb to the Ghisallo, all talk would cease, and the 2004 edition of the Giro would be decided.
The race started with a short individual time-trial. There was also a team time-trial on the sixth day which could prove critical. Fabiana Luperini’s team were so strong that Diana and I could potentially lose much time to them, particularly if by then we were so weakened by injuries or exhaustion that the deficit could be too large to make up during the rest of the race. Therefore, it was critical to get to the penultimate day less than one minute behind my main rivals.
As I waited for my turn at the prologue start house, I had time to think. I had only ridden one race all year and in my last big stage race, the Tour de France in 2002, I had not even made it to the finish. I was meant to be here testing out my Olympic time-trial bike, a tangible asset from the much vaunted ‘marginal gains’ BC WCPP programme, and clear, irrefutable proof that BC had changed direction and were now backing me. But where was my bike?
The previous November, Dave Brailsford was keen to promote the first two members of Team GB selected for any sport for the Athens Olympics – David Millar and me. So dominant were we that our positions in Team GB were indisputable. Dave convened a special press conference at FA headquarters in London to stage the event and promote his two stars. That World champion David Millar was given pride of place, while I was there as some sort of gesture to feminism by an overtly male sport, was uncomfortable but to be expected. That nobody seemed to question the ability of Millar to ride effectively against the likes of products of the East German sporting past, such as Jan Ullrich, while EPO use was endemic in the peloton, seemed illogical to me.
Looking at the press coverage of that event now, it is laughable, the male journalists paying all their attention to Millar, while I was seen as an afterthought. In a 400-odd word article in Cyclingnews.com, the unbelievably good David got blanket coverage, while just eight words in a part sentence were left for me. This contrasted somewhat with the website’s reader poll at the end of 2003, in which I was voted female rider of the year across all disciplines. I was the only female to make the top ten of readers’ rider of the year. That list was topped by Lance Armstrong, with fellow luminary Tyler Hamilton also up there. David Millar did not make that listing. As the sexist attitudes of the time dictated, most sporting journalists wrote about the male first, then the female – if there was any space left.
I don’t regret that my role was marginalised, as being associated with Millar was not something I wanted. Just before the British Championships the previous week, news broke that the French gendarmerie had gained a warrant to search Millar’s house while he and Dave Brailsford were enjoying an evening meal together talking strategy and plans for Athens. The gendarmerie had found empty phials of EPO. This was a shock to Dave Brailsford and many others, though the news was greeted very differently in the Cooke household. That Dave chose to ring up my Dad in the days that followed to talk to him about the ideas we had about anti-doping programmes, was most eloquent witness to where we stood. While Dave had been firming up final plans with Millar over a glass of wine, nothing had been done to prepare a TT bike for me, the other ‘first’ selected member of Team GB, at the Giro.
Dave gave Dad the go-ahead to visit the factory at Derby that produced the special TT bikes for the squad. On the Saturday of the first weekend of the Giro, Dad was discussing frame sizes and bottom brackets with the manager of the company. The specification was agreed and Dad asked when the machine would be ready. Apparently, the earliest time this could possibly happen was September – my clock struck 12 noon in August! (Déjà vu on the cunning BC plan for solving Olympic age restrictions four years earlier.) It was not that the company was busy on other jobs, rather all free production time was committed to the British Cycling Olympic bid. Apparently, in the ovens and laid up in the moulds were the spare machines for all the track riders. The track riders already had their No.1 machines and these had been tuned and modified some time ago during the programme of marginal gains – they were simply preparing the back-up bikes. That Saturday morning, Dad called Dave while still at the works office with the manager stood alongside him. Priorities were changed and a bike was produced; however, the first I saw of it was a few days before departing for Athens, and I had my first competitive ride on it at the Athens TT.
Back at the Giro, I was delighted with my eighth place in the prologue time-trial against the best riders in the world in the No.1 race in the world that year, even if it was ‘marginal gains free’. Diana Ziliute showed that she had superb form and won, which put her in the pink leader’s jersey. The benefit of this was that it took the attention away from me.
On the second day, Stage 1 proper, Diana was challenged for her jersey by some attacks, notably from Zulfiya, but we worked well as a team to keep the race together. The stage ended in a sprint won by Oenone and Diana retained the leader’s jersey. On Stage 2, there were two Category 2 climbs in the last 30km. Other teams wanted to break up the race. We were under instructions to keep it together to make sure Diana retained the pink leader’s jersey. We all had to work hard chasing down break after break. Eventually, Edita broke away to win the stage but only by seven seconds, so Diana retained her lead. Stage 3 started from our home base of Cornuda, so there were many familiar faces in the crowd. Maurizio wanted us to put on our very best show for the sponsors he brought to the race. The crowd’s genuine enthusiasm and support reached out to inspire us that day, as we were all at the front, apart from Diana, to set up a perfect leadout train for our sprinter Regina to win the 132km stage. Diana stayed a bit further back in the bunch, away from the dangerous jockeying at the front with the risk of crashes, and kept the leader’s jersey. We tried to repeat the success the next day, but Regina was pipped to the line by Annette Beutler.
Stage 5 was the big test we were all worried about, the team time-trial. This was no ordinary time-trial course. We had travelled across the border to Switzerland and the stage started in Brig and went along the valley before turning off up the mountain to finish at 1,400m above sea level in Leukerbad. The team’s time was going to be taken on the third rider to cross the line, but any rider finishing slower than the third rider would receive their own actual time. The Let’s Go Finland team was very strong and sure to take time out of us if all eight of us tried to stay together. Instead, we decided that we would sacrifice part of the team. Diana, who needed to defend the leader’s jersey, together with Modesta Vzesniauskaite and myself who were the best climbers, would be the three to go together up the climb. The others would effectively ride a shorter race by riding flat out along the valley, leaving the three of us fresh for the climb, while those who had done the work on the flat would have to make their way up the climb as best they could. It was a high-risk plan, because there was no back-up fourth rider in case anything went wrong.
Having the race leader in our team meant we were last on the road and could receive time checks on our rivals ahead. Our team-mates rode flat out while we slipstreamed behind them, and by the start of the climb we were level with Let’s Go Finland. Diana is not a great climber, but she knew that she was going to have to give it everything. Modesta and I needed to ride ahead of Diana, fast but avoiding accelerations which would put Diana in difficulty. We received a time check – our strategy was working, we were only a few seconds down on Let’s Go Finland. Then at about 8km to go, I heard that telltale hissing sound. I bounced on the bike slightly to see if it was a front or rear wheel puncture. It was the worst, a rear wheel, especially with a hill start. I shouted to Modesta to keep going at the same speed; she needed to ensure Diana rode at an even pace up the whole climb. I was going to be the one who did the chasing.
Primo got a replacement bike off the team car in record time and I launched into a chase. With about 4km to go, I closed up to my team-mates. As I caught them, the road started to flatten out and we immediately changed from climbing mode to each doing short hard turns on the front, with the other two taking temporary shelter, like a team pursuit on the track. It nearly killed me; the maximum pace on the climb was at least continuous, but now we were doing short high-power intervals and the pressure was on Diana and me to keep the speed as high as possible. We were both good time-triallists, whereas Modesta was a climber and was struggling with the fast speed on the flat. We crossed the line; all of us exhausted, and heard the result: second place but only 17 seconds behind the Let’s Go Finland team of Fabiana Luperini, Priska Doppmann and Zulfiya Zabirova.
Diana had lost the Maglia Rosa to Priska but only by five seconds. Diana was second on the same time as Zulfiya, I was fourth at 22 seconds with my main rival for the overall victory, Fabiana, fifth, one second behind. The really good news was that we had ridden so hard that the Michela Fanini team of Nicole Brandli and Edita Pucinskaite were over four minutes down and out of the running for the overall title. In contrast Rachel Heal, with whom I would be riding together in the GB team a few short weeks later in Athens, had proved just how much she had come on in the last two years, and after a superb ride with Farm Frites was in eighth place only 1 minute 25 seconds down. Maurizio was delighted with the result, knowing how well we had ridden as a team and that without my puncture we might have actually beaten Let’s Go Finland.
The next stage was tricky, with difficult twisty roads. As a team, we had to stay alert and help Diana counter the attacks from the other teams and make sure that she was in contention for the win, which carried a ten-second bonus. It worked well, Diana won and got the bonus which put her back into the pink jersey, and I also picked up six seconds in intermediate bonuses so now had seven seconds over Fabiana on GC. The next day was a hilly stage. Both Edita and Fabiana used it to try to get away, but the whole team were motivated and committed to keeping Diana in pink. I led her out in the sprint at which more precious bonus seconds were available. She finished third behind Olga Slyusareva and Zinaida Stahurskaya.
I had predicted that the stage up the Ghisallo would be critical, and here we were on the eve of that stage with five riders within 30 seconds of one another on GC. Ever since I had been able to resume training earlier in the year, this stage and this climb had been my focus. I spent the evening driving up and down the hill, making notes on the hairpins and gradients, which I then studied back at the hotel and again in the morning. To my delight, Mum and Dad arrived on the morning of the stage. Today I was the team’s protected rider. My team-mates helped me and controlled the race until we started the Ghisallo. On the climb they were dropped, tired from their earlier successful efforts to get me safely to this critical point. As the group at the front of the race became smaller, Joane Somarriba rode alongside me and whispered ‘testa fredda, Nicole’ (‘keep a cool head, Nicole’). She then moved in front of me to protect me so I could follow in her slipstream. Soon we were into the first set of hairpin corners. As Joane set a steady pace, Fabiana sprang from behind to launch a stinging attack. This was the crucial moment of the race. I went after Fabiana. I was straight on to her as we rode away from everyone else. I came up alongside her and took a long hard look at her, as if to say ‘You are going to have to do better than that.’ The psychological element of racing can be very important. She might have won this race four times before, with complete mastery in the mountains, but I was not going to be dismissed out of hand.
Fabiana is a very experienced rider and was not going to give up after only one attack, so she went again. I was able to match her, so my confidence grew. A few riders got up to us as Fabiana rested, restoring her strength for another attack. We marked each other.
I had anticipated that I could have been in trouble if all three Let’s Go Finland riders were still with us, but Zulfiya had been dropped and I sensed that Priska was at her limit. It was all down to Fabiana. She tried a few more times, but each time I was able to match her. I was now biding my time until I made my own attack. From my recce, I knew that with 1km to go there was a steep section; this was where I would attack. I jumped hard. Fabiana and Priska couldn’t go with me, but Edita and Nicole B, who were going for the stage win, kept pace. I now knew that I could take the overall lead but I also wanted the stage win, so I went again and this time they couldn’t match me. I kept on driving all the way to the line, the crowds and in particular the fans of our team going wild seeing me in the lead. I crossed the line and was mobbed by our team staff and all the photographers at the finish, swept up by a whirlwind of excitement. Maurizio was finally going to have a Giro winner. Edita was second at 14 seconds and Nicole B third, a further four seconds back. I had taken the stage win and the overall race lead, Fabiana was at 32 seconds and Priska at 1 minute 11 seconds.
The last day would finish in the centre of Milan where the sprinters could show off their skills. Barring accidents, the Giro was as good as won. My team-mates, Mum and Dad, and all the staff as well as Italian tifosi were all ecstatic and I could not have wanted a better place for this to happen than in the shadows of the Madonna di Ghisallo, the patron saint of cyclists. After the stage presentation and still wearing my Maglia Rosa, we paid our respects inside the chapel. I was amazed by the bikes, jerseys and memorabilia representing the history of cycling and our greatest champions. It was a truly remarkable and special day.
The last day was a formality through the streets of Milan, ending in laps around the majestic Castello Sforzesco just like the men’s Giro d’Italia and similar to the Tour de France finish up and down the Champs Élysées. As the whole peloton started preparing for the finish, I went to the front of the bunch to show the pink jersey and lead the peloton before then working with the team to provide a leadout for Regina.
Then the celebrations started. I was the overall winner, we had won the team classification, we had won four stages and between Diana and myself we had worn the pink jersey for eight of the nine stages since the prologue. I jumped into the fountain with my team-mates, still dressed in my Maglia Rosa and splashed around, savouring every moment. I was the youngest-ever winner of the Giro and it was run at the fastest-ever average speed. I was, of course, the first-ever British rider to win a major grand tour on the continent – male or female.
Maurizio threw a massive party that night when we got back home to Corunda. It was a huge event for the cycling-mad community. All the sponsors and local companies, who each year contributed to this, and their team of professional racing cyclists, of whom they were so proud, were there. I felt so privileged to be able to reward all their years of devoted support. The mayor made a speech, the Alpini mountain reservists tended the bar and Nonna and her family joined in. The night was all about the Giro. Some may have celebrated long into the night, but I knew the next day it would be time to focus on Athens. A clock had gone quiet for the last week; it was about to start ticking loudly again. I had been able to hear its faint beat when I stood in the cool of the fountains that afternoon.