Two medals for British Cycling Team at the Olympics

13/08/2008

The Daily Telegraph reports:

It took an American cyclist called Armstrong to deny GB's women a second gold medal when Emma Pooley rode the race of her life to win a silver medal in the women’s time-trial on the demanding mountain circuit under the Great Wall of China.
Pooley, who contributed so well to Nicole Cooke’s gold in the road race on Sunday, was fifth out of the gate and rode the race of her life to set a time of 35 minutes 16.01 seconds before sitting back to see how the rest of the field coped with such demand course.

A succession of former World or Olympic time-trial champions found the pace way to hot – all except for one. America’s Kristin Armstrong who produced an astonishing effort to win by 24 seconds.

Switzerland’s Karin Thurig, one of the pre-race favourites, was third, nearly a minute behind Armstrong.

Showing no obvious distress from Sunday’s gruelling race in the rain, Pooley is always strong in the hills but has also been training specifically for this race, always believing she had a chance to medal.

An engineering graduate from Trinity College Cambridge, Pooley asked Chris Boardman and his technological development team to produce a custom made time-trial bike including especially designed handlebars to accommodate her very unique riding position.

Today everything came together beautifully and it required something special from Armstorng to deny her.

“I am absolutely delighted, and a little incredulous” said Pooley.

“I gave it absolutely everything, that’s the only way you can approach a time-trial and the bike handled beautifully. I wouldn’t have been in contention if it was along straight course but there was enough hills and enough bike handling out there to make it interesting.

“I felt pretty tired after the road race but I reasoned that would be the same for everybody. It was still a course suited to me and I had to make sure I left nothing on the road. I took it out really hard up the main climb because I had to make the course work for me.

“I can still hardly believe it. When I was waiting as all the riders gradually finished Karin Thurig of Switzerland walked past and gave me a friendly tap on the shoulders and thumbs up while I was doing interviews. Karin Thurig is one of my all-time cycling heroes."

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