The byways between Leeds, Harrogate and Bradford have been the making of British cycling star Lizzie Armitstead, but can they take her all the way to Olympic gold?
Country roads should take you home. That’s what John Denver’s 1970s folk classic said. But for Lizzie Armitstead, 23, Britain’s Olympic hope in this year’s women’s road-cycling team, they could lead her to a coveted Olympic gold medal. In fact, were it not for the quiet and safe country roads around her picturesque home town of Otley, near Leeds in West Yorkshire, Elizabeth Mary Armitstead would never have persevered in cycling at all.
It’s a well-publicised fact that she never rode a bike until the age of 16. It was only after her potential was discovered by talent scouts at school that she was encouraged to start training. And it was the attractive countryside in Mid-Wharfedale at the centre of the rural triangle between Leeds, Harrogate and Bradford that inspired her to continue.
“I’m very lucky with where I was brought up on the edge of Leeds,” she says. “It’s right in the countryside. So it’s perfect for riding my bike. I feel very safe there. The comfort of it drew me in and spurred me on.”As JetAway joins her on a tour of London’s Olympic Village in Stratford, Armitstead laughs about the chance event seven years ago when she first discovered her calling. “I didn’t have a bike at all.
Now and again I would get on a family bicycle to go to a friend’s house. But that was it. I didn’t even understand the sport of cycling. I knew nothing about it.”Then, in 2005, a team of talent scouts from British Cycling visited Prince Henry’s Grammar School.
It was the first time she had cycled “in anger”, and she found she was quite competitive. “They said they’d discovered a natural talent,” she admits shyly. From that day she was motivated to train seriously. She was given a road bike, took to the country lanes around Otley, and loved it. Fortunately, Otley is also conveniently close to all the other facilities an Olympic cyclist might need: physiotherapists, nutritional experts, gymnasiums, sports psychologists and the most important of them all – her family, friends and the other cyclists she encounters during her training. So meteoric was her success both on the road and on the track that by the end of last year she was faced with the quandary of picking the discipline she should specialize in for the London Olympics.
As a gold medalist in the 2009 Women’s Team Pursuit at the Track Cycling World Championships in Poland it was almost safest to head back to the track where she has already tasted success. Why risk a puncture or massive tumble on the road to see her dreams go to ruin? But when we enter the velodrome amid the noise and bustle of construction in the heart of the Olympic Village, she announces that she will not be racing at this impressive 6,000-seater indoor facility. She’s heading back to the road, the discipline on which she has pinned all her Olympic dreams. Was it her love for the county lanes that helped her make up her mind? “Definitely.” But she also admits that she feels better having put all her eggs in one basket. “I needed to do it. I am focused on the road race now, which I find is already helpful in my training. I’m enjoying my training a lot more now and I know what I am going for.”Is she afraid that a disastrous tumble could rob her of her dreams? She shrugs off the suggestion. “No. I can just as easily tumble on the track. I’ll just end up with more splinters.”
Armitstead is familiar with the dangers of road racing. Last September in Copenhagen during the Women’s Road Race World Championships she was on the way to leading the British team home when she was caught up in a crash that brought her to a virtual standstill. On that occasion she showed true grit when she fought back through the field from nowhere to take seventh place. That result, although not impressive as a statistic, underlines her determination. At the end of 2011 she was the undisputed British national road-race champion. But Armitstead struggled when she lived for a while in the centre of Manchester. “Doing road racing there was tough because I missed home. Not necessarily being home, just the riding I have at home.”