I had always set out to show that I could win different races in all types of situations: one-day classics, stage races, winning alone or sprinting to the win from a group, or even a big bunch sprint, whether on a hilly or a flat course. I had also set records for being the youngest winner of the World Cup and Giro d’Italia. But with more injury and the collapse of the Raleigh team, I felt that my star was waning while Marianne Vos’s was firmly in the ascendance. Marianne was driven and confident; she could climb, sprint and had a smart tactical head. She had a team around her that was well funded and built totally around supporting the star whose presence created it. Marianne had finished her season with silver in the World Championships, having displaced me as No.1 in the world rankings as well as winning the World Cup series. The Dutch understood road cycling, and her support structure was only going to get stronger as her success confirmed they were backing a winner.
Following my latest knee operation, I returned to Lugano where I attempted to draw a line under the events of the previous season and put aside my disappointments. It was time to focus on the biggest prize of all: the Beijing Olympic road race. Julian Winn’s appointment eased the communication problems within the GB set-up. I was a little concerned about the lack of definition about the time-trial selection criteria, but a discussion produced a confirmed, written conclusion that Steve Peters would have responsibility for resolving that with the relevant riders.
Then a most curious situation presented itself. Halfords were keen to work with British Cycling and promote their range of Boardman bikes. Dave Brailsford came up with a plan to register a UCI trade team, made up of the U23 girls that BC had supported the year before, under the Halfords’ name. I would join it and bring my UCI points, so the team could then get into all the big races. Julian would be manager, assisted by Simon Cope, the full-time U23 women’s manager. There would be BC mechanics and support. In the team would be myself, the U23 girls and British girls who were not getting a ride elsewhere. The sponsors would pay me a good salary and other expenses.
I was disappointed that we were not joined by Emma Pooley, who was staying with the Specialized team, but if that worked for her, she needed to stay there. If we did a race that her team could not get into or did not attend, she could join us and then we would enter as the GB team. Halfords would have only GB nationals on the roster. Of course, the downside of this was that this would be the weakest team I had ever ridden for. I had to park up any ambitions of a World Cup campaign or a race win where I could not survive for the significant period of the race on my own. But as the year drew to a close, I was not bothered. My health was poor, I was in for a legal battle with Thomas Campana, and scarred deep into my soul was the memory of my last race – being with a strong team who were directed, specifically, to race for an objective that was contrary to my interest. What was the point of being with a strong team?
My training progressed over the next few weeks, back with Mauro in the hills. Then during a modest training ride in mid-November, my knee began to ache. I eased up immediately and gently headed home, hoping an overnight rest would resolve what might only be a niggle. After a night of wrestling my demons, I set off gingerly the next morning, but within 20 minutes it was hurting again and every worst-case scenario was now running through my head. I was distraught, I’d done the best-ever injury prevention programme and it hadn’t worked. I’d had an operation and followed the rehabilitation to the tiniest detail, and now that hadn’t worked. There seemed like no way out. I rang my parents to tell them about my knee, managing to hold myself together for a few minutes before breaking down in tears. I could not take it anymore; I wanted to stop and end my career there and then.
Mum and Dad were both so supportive. If I wanted to retire, then they would totally respect that and stand by me. Cycling was not everything in life and there are lots of other things I could do, it was up to me. I was convinced that was it: five seasons with knee injuries was too much, and to have the pain return so soon after the operation that was meant to fix it, left me desolate. The one thing that had kept me going through all the chaos of the last year was the belief that I was capable of becoming Olympic champion regardless of all that happened off the bike, but with my knee looking like it was unfixable, I touched rock bottom.
I needed time to make such an important decision. I thought about cycling almost every minute of every day and I needed to hit ‘pause’ and consider what life would be like without it. I had found comfort in talking with Mum and Dad and sharing my feelings and fears – so I texted Andy Walser, the only other person who I felt could understand my situation and cared, rather than seeing me as a name on a result sheet, or a medal prospect. He telephoned almost immediately and we ended up talking about the ultimate rewards of doing something that was difficult. He also wanted me to meet a friend of his, Doctor Fabio Bartalucci, who might have some fresh ideas about my knee injury.
I also emailed Steve Peters. If ever a sports psychiatrist was going to be able to help me, it was now. He was able to put things more into perspective. There was only one goal for the year and it was almost nine months until the Beijing Olympics. If I took time to recover from my injury and began training perhaps as late as March, I could still be ready for the games in August. Then I headed for Tuscany to see Andy’s doctor friend who, after listening to the long history of the injury, asked me about my training and what I did in between races during the season. Fabio suggested that I could be doing too much, pushing the knee beyond its limits too often.
Back in Lugano, I reflected on what had been said. Julian and I had already planned the recce of the Olympic course in Beijing to coincide with the Track World Cup held in December. I hadn’t ridden my bike for two weeks and was struggling to believe that I might actually be at the Olympics, but the tickets had been booked so I made the trip with Julian, meeting the British track team in Beijing. The road race course started with an 80km flat section before swinging onto a hilly circuit, which had to be completed twice. It began with a 10km climb, followed by a descent and then an uphill finish. This course would create a selection on the long climb for pure climbers, yet it needed a sprint to finish the race. On the second day I decided, regardless of whether my knee might hurt or not, that I wanted to ride the 10km climb, and sprint the 750m of the uphill finish. My physical condition was appalling, but it allowed me to get a feel for the gradient and the gear ratio I would need.
I spent December in the UK, mostly in Manchester, having intensive rehab for my knee. Here we spent time confirming the programme for the year and key markers. I took part in a GB training camp just before Christmas at Abergavenny, where my knee prevented any serious training. Tanja Slater was with us here but she then left competitive cycling forever; 2007 at Raleigh with Thomas had exhausted us both.
January 2008 was horrible. We had the official launch of the Halfords team and Dave Brailsford had added in a couple of male riders – Tom Southam, last seen in 2005 being banned from ever representing GB again, and Rob Hayles who had been to the three previous Olympics but who would be quietly dropped weeks later, forced to take the prescribed sanction of a ‘health rest’ due to an elevated haematocrit level. For a team apparently built around supporting my Olympic bid, many features left me entirely baffled as to their purpose. I never saw either of these two again. The media conference was one of the hardest I had ever done. There was no way I could put a dampener on the celebrations and, despite having done no training and my knee hurting, I tried to behave as if everything was on schedule and I would be ready for Beijing. They even wanted to get shots of me riding the bikes that Halfords were providing. I couldn’t tell anyone that I was barely riding.
The full squad was: Jess Allen, Lizzie Armitstead, Katie Colclough, Katie Curtis, Wendy Houvenaghel, Jo Rowsell, Emma Trott, Catherine Hare and me. Despite this large roster, we would, bizarrely, find the need to ‘guest-in’ other riders when we couldn’t get a team together to attend the events planned into our so meticulously prepared calendar.
The British Cycling medical team, led by Phil Burt, were genuinely supportive. There was a theory that with the onset of pain in my knee, nerve messages were being sent to the surrounding muscles to switch off in a response to protect the body and reduce the cause of the pain. So to switch these muscles back on, they stuck electrical pads attached to a battery on my gluteus muscles. When the battery was turned on, small electric shocks were sent through the pads every six seconds to spark my muscles into action. I was riding for 20 minutes, three times a day on the rollers, during which I had to endure hundreds of these shocks. It was unpleasant and soul-destroying. At dinner one night with my parents, a tune came on the radio, ‘Vinceró’ by Luciano Pavarotti, which is a positive, rousing number, but to me the phrase ‘I will win’ caused tears to well up in my eyes. At first, I tried to hide it from my parents and then there was no point. I was now just seven months away from what should have been the most important day of my career. I was still at rock bottom.
By the end of January, I had progressed to the point where I was doing three, 45-minute sessions each day. Andy Walser had previously suggested that I could use his house in Tuscany and make the most of the milder weather. I hadn’t trained properly for the best part of five months, so my fitness levels were the lowest they had been since I had started competitive cycling. I began training by blowing up spectacularly after an hour and having to stop. Mauro remained a great support, waiting with me by the side of the road whenever my knee needed a rest and pacing me on climbs regardless of how slow I was going, or how hard I was breathing, as I tried to follow him. Slowly, I increased the duration, in five-minute segments day after day. At the beginning of March, I completed a long ride, pain free, for the first time in seven months.
My season and debut race for Halfords began with the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, a round of the World Cup in late March. My expectations for the spring classics were low. If I could finish with the bunch that would be an achievement – a total contrast with my thoughts 12 months ago. The intensity of racing would be a big test for my knee. Gordon Wright and Dad were keen to protect my knee by racing less and resting more. Having just one British sponsor meant we could design a racing programme to meet my needs, rather than doing a lot of local races to satisfy a collection of minor sponsors needing local publicity, as is normally the case for women’s teams.
Emma Pooley attacked alone on a hill 40km from the finish and stayed away from the peloton to win comfortably, which made a good statement about her own ability. It was a win exactly like her Stage 3 win in Thüringen the year before. Other riders noted the performance. I rode well, considering my circumstances, in the main group but was not competitive in the sprint, finishing 20th. I was relieved to have completed the race; however, the media decided I was ‘riding deliberately low on form due to a season-long build-up towards the Olympics’. If only they knew.
I was defending champion in the Tour of Flanders and had completed two more weeks of training, so I hoped to see some improvements. Irrespective of my form, I missed the race-winning attack by Kristin Armstrong and Judith Arndt and then made a futile attack in the latter stages trying to secure third spot, only to be caught and passed by the whole of the leading group, finishing 16th.
At the Flèche Wallonne, we entered as the GB team so that Emma could join us. A new addition to the team was Sharon Laws, who had been living in Australia and won numerous mountain bike races and performed well in testing. She was offered a place on the Halfords team and moved to Britain. Here, we were to have our first race as the provisional Olympic team of Emma, Sharon and me. My GB team-mates delivered me in prime position at the base of the Mur de Huy, but Marianne Vos claimed her second victory on the Mur, while I could manage only eighth place. Emma finished sixth and had led me out; I’m sure she would have finished higher had we been leading her out instead.
The first significant milestone of the season, where I expected to perform competitively, was the Magali Pache time-trial in early May. The importance of the race was heightened because Sharon Laws had decided she wanted to challenge me for the second spot for the Olympic TT event. After her top ten finish in the 2007 World Championship, Emma had been given one of the places. Out of contention was Wendy Houvenaghel, who was now concentrating only on the pursuit.
I finished 12th, just behind Emma, which was a very frustrating result. Gordon had travelled out to see me race. It was a key point in our programme and had been since we confirmed it in December. We had put a taper in for the event, so I should have been performing to capacity, challenging for the win. Instead, I was well off the pace. Gordon and Dad were working on my daily training, and Andy was with me as I was riding one of his machines.
I talked it through with Andy. Gordon and Dad were doing their best, but both had full-time jobs and neither saw me regularly. Fabio Bartalucci’s strategy for the knee had been working very well and he was still suggesting I reduce the volume of training. Importantly, Fabio was within easy reach, he could go out for rides with me and could see me climb and sprint. My best years with Dad had been when he saw me every day and could tell me to ease up over the next few days or go hard. Training feedback, hours later, over the phone wasn’t even third best. This prompted Andy to suggest changing coaches and asking Fabio to take me on. Gordon and Dad were both very good about it.
With Fabio, the training rides were shorter and had a greater variety of interval training. He also introduced strength training on the bike by riding up hills with a low cadence. We did many rides together. At first, the training triggered knee pain but within a fortnight, with Fabio fine-tuning my training depending on how my knee was responding, I could sense an improvement. I felt like I was starting to get stronger. The day before travelling to France for the ten-day Tour de L’Aude, I realised in the middle of my ride that I actually enjoyed riding my bike again.
We rode as a GB team comprising Catherine Hare, Sharon Laws, Emma Pooley, Jess Allen and myself. Guesting with us, due to the unavailability of any Halfords rider in this, one of our two major races before Beijing, was Leda Cox. Also present were Helen Wyman’s Swift team, featuring three other GB riders. They were now regulars on the continental circuit, with Helen and Stefan doing great things with little resource.
In the prologue, I was pleased with 13th in a field of over a hundred; it wasn’t great but it showed I had made progress. The first test would come straightaway on the 107km Stage 1; there was a big hill where a group of four broke away – Susanne Ljungskog, Trixi Worrack, Judith Arndt and Sharon Laws. I could not go with them and was in a group of a dozen or so riders chasing close behind. At around 5km to go, the gap had reduced to 30 seconds. I launched an attack, took no one with me and then started the individual pursuit to close on the leaders, latching on with 2km to go. Sharon and I now had the numerical advantage and were in a position to take the initiative. Sharon led out the sprint immaculately and I was delighted to reward her effort by timing my kick perfectly to win.
This was a very big moment. Alongside us in the break had been two recent World champions, so this success was right out of the top drawer. I had waited eight years for this privilege, being in a break and having another GB rider riding with me. Over the rest of the tour, I didn’t add any more wins but could feel my strength and fitness returning and was pleased with my fourth overall. Much more importantly, my knee had stood up to ten consecutive days of racing. I was a long way from daring to dream, but at least I was looking forward to the next day.