2007 UCI Para-Cycling World Championships

The 2007 World Championships were held in Bordeaux, France. We travelled out on Wednesday 15th August which gave us a few days to get used to the steeply banked 250m track prior to the competition starting.

The goals for this year were set high with us required to win Gold in the 1km time trial in a new World Record time or to win Gold in the 1km and podium in another event. So the pressure was really on us to perform well.

We were entered for the 1km time trial and the 3km pursuit.

Our first event was the 1km time trial the following Monday.
There were 19 female tandems entered for the kilometre and as World Champions, we were off last.

A number of tandem pairings prior to us had false started with the commissar being a little trigger happy in firing his gun and we were no exception to this.

Having only one more chance to get it right we made sure that second time around we didn’t give him any excuses to fire his gun again. On our second attempt the commissar holding our tandem let us go as we set off and then grabbed my saddle again, losing us valuable time.

Despite this we got the tandem going and settled into our ride. The pressure was really on us as the Aussie pairing of Felicity Johnson and Katie Parker had posted a very fast time of 1:10.789. However, we were confident that we could go faster and we crossed the finish line in a time of 1:10.539, to win Gold. Not a new World Record but given the issues at the start, it was a respectable time and just over one tenth of a second off our World Record time of 1:10.431.

Having got the kilometre out of the way, we turned our attentions to the 3km pursuit, which is an event that sprinters dread.

We hadn’t done any specific training for this event and were only riding it to gain points for places for next years Paralympic Games in Beijing.

The pursuit involves riding a qualifying time over 3km with another tandem setting off on the opposite side of the track. The fastest two teams then ride off for the Gold and Silver medals with the 3rd and 4th fastest teams riding off for the Bronze medal later on the same day.

There were 19 female tandems entered for the pursuit and as we were not seeded in the event, we went off in the second heat with the Irish pairing of Walsh and Hickey, setting off on the opposite side of the track.

Due to the number of false starts from the kilometre, we now had to use a start gate instead of being held by a commissar. Not having used a start gate before we were unsure how this would go, but in fact it was fine. At least we didn’t need to worry about whether the commissar would hold us correctly or let us go when he should!

We set off at an easier pace that we would for the kilometre and settled down into a rhythm. Each time we came to our start line, Chris our coach shouted out our lap times so that we knew whether we were going too fast or too slow. We aimed to do around 18 second laps and we were around this which was great. It actually felt reasonably comfortable which was a real surprise to us.

We passed the Irish girls pretty quickly into the race and we crossed the finish line in a time of 3:39.7 which was just over 3 seconds off the World Record time of 3:36.816.

We were absolutely delighted with our time and I was so confident that we would be riding off for the Gold/Silver medals that I celebrated; waiving to the crowd!

I was not wrong and even the Aussie team of Lindy Hou and Toireasa Gallagher who were only one hundredth of a second off breaking the pursuit World Record at the Australian Nationals in February this year were fractionally slower than us.

We now had to do it all again in the afternoon. But even if we did a poor ride the second time around, we would still come away with a Silver medal. However, Gold was what we wanted.

As fastest qualifiers, we now started in the home straight were the crowds of spectators were sat cheering us on. However, this time around I couldn’t hear the lap times from Chris and I lost track of how many laps we had done and more importantly how many we had left; I just kept pedalling as hard as I could. The second ride was a lot tougher than the first earlier in the day and we had to dig deep to keep the pedals turning. It wasn’t until I heard our bell ring first which indicated we had started our last lap that I knew where I was and that we were ahead of the Aussies at this point. One lap left and we gave it everything and crossed the line first to win our second Gold medal of the Championships in a time of 3:40.626. The Aussies finished in a time of 3:42.383. We were now double World Champions!

We just couldn’t believe we had won the pursuit. It was amazing and a fantastic feeling. We had entered this event to gain points for places for Beijing and we had shocked a number of people, including our coaches and team manager by going out and winning. We had achieved our goal for the year by winning 2 Gold medals.

I went out for a meal that night in Bordeaux to celebrate with my mum Maureen and sister Sharon and friends Kathy Ludbrook and Gordon Lister who had travelled to Bordeaux to cheer me on.

Then having just over an hours sleep, we set off for the airport at 4am the next morning for our flights back home.