Victoria Pendleton

Felt like putting this in chat rather than bike.

With the impending olympics, as usual papers are dragging out retired Olympians, and having a wee chat with them. Coincidentally both telegraph and guardian have ‘interviewed ‘ Pendleton and published today, the telegraph using the byline ‘The Real Lives of Olympians’. Worth reading and comparing both articles, and thinking about the impressions left after reading each one. That’s all, really.

Telegraph

Guardian

If you don’t have access to the telegraph, pasting the url into 12ft.io will render the text, it looks pretty butchered but worth reading before the guardian article.

Hmmm. Read the grauniad one, was interesting.  Will try to read the other.

Jesus H Christ, that Telegraph article is awful. Just a pointless list of prepared stupid inane questions totally unable to dig to any depth.

What weight can you squat?

I mean really, for **** sake, whoi cares.

I’ve read the Guardian article earlier, which was really interesting

The Telegraph nowadays is just The Sun with delusions of grandeur and a serif typeface

My FiL showed me a write up of the McLaren team orders thing from the F1. I saw it all happen on the TV so was surprised to read about anger and outrage from Norris when he just seemed calm to me.

She’s a brand ambassador for ThruDark these days I believe? I suppose I’ll forgive her that given she had to spend her formative years in proximity to Shane Sutton.

I’ll let get off with the Thrudark stuff because my 80 year old mum absolutely loves her Pendleton E-bike which she’s out on all the time. It’s the most un-Thrudark thing imaginable. 😀

Isn’t she married to the owner of Thrudark though ?

As for the articles, that’s just standard format, one has gone for a short Q&A based article for online, the other looks like it’s got for a life story style story that’s larger and more in-depth.

Found them both interesting enough two sides of the same coin, although the higher word count of the Guardian means it is more indepth.

I mean really, for **** sake, whoi cares.

Other people who have an interest in exercise. I once read a whole book about a man who swam around the coast of England. A whole book I tell you!

Had never heard of Thrudark and having been to their website wish it had stayed that way……………

^^Damn,don’t mess with the Threwdurk,after that visit,they now know where you live and will be tracking your every move #tipofthespear

For someone who has no wish to visit the web site, WTF is / was / should be / could be / ThruDark ?

On a mountain biking forum I was suspecting it was yet another axle spacing and retention standard.  Specially developed to give 14.3% more ambidextrous stiffness on night rides.

Nah, light reactive goggles surely?

My BiL has taken to wearing it. I was already suspicious as it’s a bit EDL uniform from what i know of it….but now I’ve seen the prices I’m a bit angry, given he still owes me over £7k from a loan he hasn’t repaid, and is constantly bleating about how little he earns. Last time he visited I reckon his outfit must have been £200+ including £18 for a pair of ***** socks.

I’m in a pair of cargo shorts I bought from Vinted for a fiver.

Prick.

WTF is / was / should be / could be / ThruDark ?

Its a brand founded by special forces ninjas to appeal to people who despite being extremely well paid to do office work still dream of their commando comics but who also fancy being olympic athletes.

Think arcteryx but an even higher price and aiming at not just “conquering” nature but also shooting a bunch of badguys whilst you do so.

If it wasnt for some of the adventure tourism companies they got in bed with and their need to spraypaint arrows everywhere so their explorers wouldnt get lost I would sort of like them. They are a fun take on the veblen good principle.

She was an amazing athlete and seems to be really hard on herself despite all her success. Shame she has left cycling, as I’m sure she could have helped advise the next generation of female sprinters. She is quite honest about being grateful for cycling allowing her to not get a ‘proper’ job after retiring at 32.

But….. And I feel a bit bad for thinking this, she does seem to do quite well with endorsements and photo shoots despite saying how much she didn’t like the attention. I suppose she has to earn but it does seem a bit two faced.

Edit: similar to Wiggins IMO, despite now saying how he hated cycling and was now done with it, he was on Lance Armstrong’s TDF podcast recently.

Never heard of Thrudark until some kind soul gave them some free promotion on here; looks ok, some of the gear has quite nifty technical features, and some nice design going on. Expensive, sure, but I’m pretty sure I could find loads more similar kits for similar prices, it’s pretty par for the course.
The Seamfree base layer stuff looks like it could be a good compression layer as well; I wonder how it would work with arthritic knees in cold weather, for example.

I’ll forgive her that given she had to spend her formative years in proximity to Shane Sutton.

And, from what I remember of the pre-2012 games feature that was on the Beeb, her dad, who came across as a bully and, frankly, a bit of a c__t.

I mean really, for **** sake, whoi cares.

I do (impressive numbers but there are women out there that can squat more. Let’s hope British Cycling stay away from them).

The Guardian article is a brutal read.

WTF is / was / should be / could be / ThruDark ?

Obscenely overpriced clothing worn by the type of person who applies to go on Channel 4’s SAS – Who Dares Wins, because they think that as they go to the gym a lot it means they’d be a shoe in for the SAS. They probably also drive one of the new Defenders. A matt black one. That’s a definite crossover market.

similar to Wiggins IMO, despite now saying how he hated cycling and was now done with it, he was on Lance Armstrong’s TDF podcast recently.

Wiggins’s is bankrupt, so I’d think he’ll be taking any gigs he’s offered. It seems to be quite common among retired sports stars who must have earned millions during their (relatively brief) career. Vicky P seems to have a bit more commercial nouse.

Read the Guardian article, can’t work out if she has been treated terribly or whether there is some pro level whinging going on!

Read the Guardian article, can’t work out if she has been treated terribly or whether there is some pro level whinging going on!

She was in the cycling program at the peak of ‘win at all costs’ and well before staff welfare was the consideration that it is today. I think she will have been treated terribly under a mentality of “if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen”, rather than “let’s help you achieve your obvious and maximum potential”.

Read the Guardian article, can’t work out if she has been treated terribly or whether there is some pro level whinging going on!

Probably both. Sutton is clearly unpleasant but she still seems unable to grasp how unprofessional her behaviour was, and how it broke the trust with those around her.

And, from what I remember of the pre-2012 games feature that was on the Beeb, her dad, who came across as a bully and, frankly, a bit of a c__t.

Her Dad was one of those “super keen but not particularly good” cyclists for whom cycling was everything, his entire social life. There’s loads of them around – often to be found at the side of a CX circuit in some parkland screaming “PEDAL HARDER!!” as their poor child cries and sobs their way around a corner. Basically he lived all his cycling dreams through her but there are stories of how she faithfully followed him around on cycle rides, doing her best to keep up cos she wanted to please him. Sounds a horrific way to be brought up.

Nicole Cooke’s Dad was pretty similar – Nicole used to ride with us occasionally when I was at uni in Cardiff, she was a few years younger but she’d come out on winter road rides with the club wearing SS jersey and shorts in the freezing conditions cos her Dad had told her it’d toughen her up. We’d all stop at the cafe at the 50 mile point for beans on toast before turning for home, she’d just carry on. Her Dad had said “ride until you literally cannot ride any further – then turn around and come home”. And she did. She’d routinely get out to the Gower Peninsula (70 or so miles), buy a local paper in the newsagents to prove to him that she’d been there, then shove it down her jersey and return home. She was about 14-15 at the time.

I think growing up like that, you get inured to what abuse actually is so when you’ve got the likes of Shane Sutton (and in spite of him being mostly found not guilty he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work) screaming abuse at you, calling you worthless, you just try harder to please cos it’s what you did for your Dad all those years ago.

OK  Crazy Legs I trust you know the difference between freedom of speech – expression of an opinion and statement of fact, which requires that what one describes is true or else one has to accept the consequences of writing things that not only are not true but may also defame.  I am Nicole’s dad.

I’m not stalking you, if I was, I would have written a reply to a very similar comment you wrote 11 years ago here on this web site  “When I was at uni in Cardiff I used to ride out with the local club on their Sunday runs occasionally..etc etc..”  https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/nicole-cook-calls-it-a-day/  but I am retired now.  And so if someone is spreading lies and defaming either myself or anyone dear to me, I do have the time to set the record straight.  Legs has made extensive claims and to present facts to counter such, it means this reply is long.

“Remove and retract” would be optimal for Legs’ post but it is not possible in this case as the author is an anonymous poster with an email address, so the publisher might simply be limited to “remove” which would not rectify.  However, making a virtue out of a necessity, leaving the libellous post up there with response is fine.  All can read and make their own minds up as to who is telling the truth.

One of the hardest things most neutral observers of my daughter’s career grapple with is the concept that “surely people wanted to help her achieve – why would anyone  stand in her way?”, in this case why would anyone want to write a false narrative.  For that we have two factors.  The first factor is fairly obvious.  There is now a better and more accepting environment for females in a male sport, but 30 years ago, which is where Crazy Legs took us, a young girl who was better than so many older boys had, not all, but a certain type of male, rushing off to set up the barricades and shout from them. My first hand experience is that the builders of barricades prefer fantasy over facts.

The other factor is best not presented by myself but we can view what others currently write about events at British Cycling relating to the time Legs describes.

I will not get into an “I never did”, “oh yes you did”, argument, instead I believe I can make a case, for the sane to accept, based on fact.  There is a wiki page about my daughter.  Also, she produced an autobiography.  Both feature much factual detail that has been subject to many checks.

The autobiography took about 18 months to go from draft to being published, in the summer of 2014.  A significant portion of that time was spent in the legal read.  Many autobiographies are so bland, publishers do not trouble themselves with the significant cost of a legal read.  Nicole made many claims in her book.  In 2013 BC/Sky were the untouchable darlings of the UK media, with both Brailsford and Sutton earning money doing “U2 can have marginal gainz” sessions for all manner of audiences.  There was not a single critical voice out there.   The publishers of Nicole’s autobiography knew this and were flagging potential issues on initial reading of the first draft chapters presented to them.  We were both ready for that.  As a teenager, Nicole had bumped into so much bigoted opposition.  Much of the structure of elite sport lies beyond the reach of the Law, such that there is little ability to achieve legal redress.  Thus many sports draw to them certain types who feel they are beyond reach, and behave poorly as a consequence.  Often, one of the few avenues open to achieve any redress was to simply write to others and record the event and make sure the perpetrator knew you had put it in writing.  The coach sitting in the sole Welsh team car pontificating whether he would or would not select Nicole – a teen-age school girl for some upcoming race, whilst he casually looked over the top of his pornographic magazine; one of many he had spread clearly on view, in the car.  Yes, as any concerned parent I wrote about it to Welsh Cycling  “but he’s the only one who can get off work and take them there.  If he doesn’t take them, Mr Cooke, then they won’t go!”  Yes, Welsh Cycling, you will make your decisions as you see fit.   Nicole, her mother and I will make our decisions – Nicole did not go with the Welsh Team to that race, she did go with the BSCA Wessex team  – and of course won.  I wrote.  I wrote an awful lot whilst Nicole was young and then later, I drafted letters for Nicole or sent them myself, if she instructed that.

I can’t remember the exact number of legal issues raised in the legal read of her book, which all boiled down to – “unless you have clear documentary evidence to support that claim, we cannot publish it”, – but it was of the order of 150.  The scanner was busy for months copying letters sent many years before.  The legal team were amazed.  No words in the text were changed for all the 150 odd points the legal team raised,  except one .  For that one, the documents supported the position but were not absolute, so there was a trivial adjustment of wording; the point was still made.

So let us look at some facts.

First off – this a thread about Victoria Pendleton.  She is a successful media person and, probably, her agent advised her to do the interviews to coincide with Paris 24.  This thread addresses those two articles.  Nobody else (i) brought up or (ii) responded to Legs’ comments about Nicole and her “mad dad”.

Next fact – we are in 2024 and Crazy Legs is describing events of 1997/8.  Why write about something else and something from so long ago?

Well we can read why – Crazy Legs has a theory that Pendleton and Cooke were alike, both subject to abusive fathers calling their child “worthless”  so any, later, abuse from Shane Sutton was simply more of what they were both used to,  “growing up like that, you get inured to what abuse actually is”.

So let’s stop that in its tracks.  Fact, I was called as a witness in the Doctor Freeman tribunal to determine his fitness to practice.  I was called not because I knew a great deal about Freeman, I have never spoken to him, but because I had extensive documented evidence about the behaviour of Sutton, whose evidence about the boxes of testogel delivered to the National Velodrome was a key feature of the Freeman case.  My evidence was mainly contemporary written documents, letters and their replies, and emails.  The tribunal is not a court of law but does have legal jurisdiction.  It looks at technical evidence that may be extensive and confidential.  In a court of law, the evidence in chief of the person is that the person expresses in court, even if it is just sections of the witness statement read out and the witness is then cross examined about it.  At the tribunal one is just asked a blanket question “are the statements you have submitted to the tribunal true?” and they are accepted as evidence equal in weight to any evidence given in person.  Doctor Freeman’s legal team asked me if I could provide evidence that Sutton was unreliable and prone to dishonesty.  I presented documents to support that position.  I was barely asked anything in the tribunal because I had submitted it all with copies of correspondence, prior to appearing.  My verbal evidence is freely available; my written evidence is subject to the blanket restrictions of written evidence at medical tribunals.  But consider the facts.  The defence QC was very keen to get my documented evidence on the record and it took a lot of expensive legal time to get it into the format for the tribunal. That expense was not to put hearsay on the record, but documented firsthand experience.

Sutton’s mode of operation was such that we were in dispute with how he went about things  from around ‘97-98.  One nice piece of evidence Freeman’s legal team were very keen that I found was the original of a letter from Welsh Cycling.  I had many email reminders – had I found it yet ? This letter was to Nicole’s brother.  It stated that his sports lot grant (about £200) was being reinstated.  They wrote that the reason it had been removed was because the Welsh Coach, Shane Sutton had misled the grant panel with false information.  They apologised about this to my son in this letter.  Here was an independent third party, of note, going on the record stating they had been deceived by their own employee.  After months of going through boxes, I found it and it was part of the evidence I provided to the tribunal. It was not the most significant evidence I offered but in terms of Leg’s comments, it is an example that is both contemporaneous to the time Legs takes us to, and, more critically for this reply –  was not authored by myself, the subject of Legs’ accusations – “well he would say that wouldn’t he”.

Sutton’s motivation for misleading the grant panel?  Well nothing other than my son was related to Nicole and her father – who were “difficult” – and this was just another way of inflicting some “difficulty” back onto them.  I will explain the nature of that “difficult” relationship between Nicole Cooke, her father and much of the coaching staff in the next section.   But at this stage, I assure, Sutton’s behaviour was not as Legs describes  something “you get inured to”.  Nicole and I never got used to it.  Certainly, like any human, Sutton’s  performance was variable, at times he could put be helpful, very helpful in fact, he was after all a  highly experienced professional cyclist who had achieved notable success in road racing, a very rare commodity in the UK cycling scene of the mid 90s  but in the main, throughout her career, he was a significant obstacle to be negotiated by Nicole.

But that did get us straight back to the time period Crazy Legs brings up which nicely slots into a key point.  Is Crazy Legs writing what he believes?  A valid question is “surely Legs would not just make that stuff up?  Why would Legs write that sort of stuff?”

Before I go on let’s see what two other people write about this period in time, both of whom are relevant.  This gives us our lead into the second factor.

At Skyfall #1: ‘Living a lie’ – exposing the dark underbelly of British cycling’s golden age, Journalist Nick Harris, http://www.sportingintelligence.com has written, very recently, about BC/Sky.  He traces things from a, sort of start, around the introduction of Lottery money into the sport, through to part #5 where the Freeman verdict is analysed.  There are comments to these articles.  One made in the last few weeks is relevant .

Ken Matheson   Jul 31

“Thanks again Nick, for giving us as much clarity as is possible about this long-running omnishambles. We wouldn’t know the half of it without your efforts.”

“I have personal questions about how all of this could have happened in an area supposedly overseen by multiple governing bodies…. but there’s a simple answer – medals!”

“Another way of looking at it is: put a group of habitual petty crooks, thieves and cheats in charge of a group of ambitious athletes and give them a pot of money with little or no oversight……”

Critical is that Ken is no casual observer.  He was a BC employee – manager of elite performance program staff, from the period Legs write about, through to 2002.  He is in post when Brailsford joins BC, I believe he may have been Brailsford’s manager at one time, but am not entirely up on the detail of the ever changing lines of responsibility there, so I may be mistaken on that point.  Then Sutton takes over Ken’s role at BC.  Ken then leaves BC.

I am no fan of Ken’s.  A reader of Nicole’s autobiography will become aware that she thought him inadequate in many key performance requirements for his role.  I share that view but I also totally endorse his view of some, not all, of the staff he attempted to manage as “a group of habitual petty crooks, thieves and cheats.” That I am fully in line with now and was fully aware of that in the late 90s.  I had a young daughter to trust to the various BC post holders.  I had a duty to my daughter as a responsible adult. We had a “difficulty”.

Next, in order to address Legs’ comments about myself I need to introduce a character very few will be familiar with Peg Hill (Labiuk).  She was recruited by BC in early 2001 to be the elite women’s coach.  With the arrival of Sutton and with Brailsford taking up a senior role, she left.  She is a Canadian, has an illustrious career coaching in North America and has written books on the subject.

For relevance, the time she writes of, in the written quote I give below, is 2001 just after she has joined BC.  Nicole won the British Senior Road Race title in 1999 when she was still an U16 youth age rider.  By 2001 she is a junior.

Nicole quotes her writing, in two places, within her autobiography.  The inverted commas are Peg’s, not mine.  Her words are in italic.  I add a couple of notes, for Legs’ education, in non italic in square brackets[ ].

Peg writes:

“Before the 2001 National Road Championships, the Women’s Endurance Squad Manager (Ken Matheson) filled me in on all the ‘trouble’ Nicole Cooke and her family caused the WCPP.  Nicole wanted to compete with the elite women, whilst still a junior.  I knew this had been done elsewhere (in the US) and couldn’t understand why they resisted.  She was already a World Champion………I was being prepared to witness a combative prima donna.  I was also informed that it would be considered an ‘embarrassment’ to the program should she win, as she was not a product of the system. …………..” 

She goes onto make the point that Nicole was not a prima donna and her interaction with her father and brother was not of the type Legs would have you believe.  She uses the phrase “she did not look like some bratty spoiled kid to me”, oh and Nicole won – undoubtedly to the displeasure of many of the staff at the BC elite program!  More “difficulties” created by Nicole Cooke, no doubt.

But let’s look at what Peg has to say about Legs’ tortured soul of an athlete.

“It was a delight to work with Nicole who obviously did know what she was doing [taking note there Legs? – Nicole is just 18 at the time] wasn’t afraid to say what she needed from the support staff, and got the racing results.   I thought it was a breath of fresh air but other staff  [the ones Ken described so aptly above] seemed to grind their teeth about it. ………Again I saw a happy athlete…….I found her very easy to work with.  …………”

OK so now we have the scene set and can contrast some more facts with Legs’ account.

Let’s take some low hanging fruit.  Legs writes “She’d routinely get out to the Gower Peninsula (70 or so miles), buy a local paper in the newsagents to prove to him that she’d been there, then shove it down her jersey and return home” Nothing that Legs has written in that quotation is true.  Look at where we live – Wick, Vale of Glamorgan.  near the old airfield at Llandow.  The one great advantage Nicole had was superb training roads with little traffic giving her a full suite of training all outside her front door.  Llandow airfield – massive wide road (old runway) with nothing on it by way of traffic, ideal for sprint intervals either as a self contained exercise or at the end of a training session, as it was close to home.  A conky, coast road ride with significant climbs, a route that could be extended to various lengths with additions  into the roads of the Vale, which also have little traffic density.  A route going north from Bridgend, into the welsh hills of under 2 hours duration and then longer routes to the Bwlch and Rhigos as required.  The only longer rides we did – I would go with her, were to her Aunt’s in Hereford – a one way trip and then back in the car with her mother who had visited her sister, niece and nephews. Nicole never rode to the Gower – it would mean a ride through the pinch points at Port Talbot/Neath and then through Swansea.  All high density traffic areas with lots of stops and starts in traffic.   And for what?  The Gower offers less good quality training than she could get 100 yards from her front door.  Perhaps the views?  (As I write this I can look from my window across Swansea bay and look at the Gower.)  It never happened Legs and remember that quote of Peg, an experienced and accomplished coach, what she wrote of the 18 year old Nicole – “who obviously did know what she was doing” Nicole did not do dumb training of the type you describe and did keep the most fastidious training diaries, all the time.  That is how you become multi world champion on your own, not just “with no-BC-back-up” but rather in spite of some of the staff Ken describes so well doing their utmost to make sure you do not succeed – all by the age of 18.  Legs, Gower never happened.

OK so how about the other aspect of that quote – “buy a newspaper to prove to him [evil father who does not believe his exhausted child] she’s been there”.  Let’s assume you have not remembered “Gower” confusing it with your own memories of riding in such a beautiful area,  and the newspaper aspect stands alone for a ride somewhere else.  By your own words you have Nicole at 14 or 15, so that is 1997/8.  Nicole was on a Sportslot grant.  She received a small fraction of that given to several of the Welsh boys of her age  – satellites rotating around the star and authorising signature of all resource, Welsh coach,  Sutton, young men who all achieved….. well we are still waiting.

Nicole’s £200 grant covered a few tanks of petrol otherwise it was the bank of M&D doing all the sponsoring.

A couple of years before, Polar had brought out software to run with their heart monitors.  It was a coaching marvel.  Multiple files could be held on the heart monitor and then downloaded.  Suddenly a whole training ride could be analysed.  Nicole and I thought it was great.  Sportslot was relevant  because, in their infinite wisdom, the administrators  decided that no grant money was to be spent on any IT equipment and they decided to classify a heart monitor as IT equipment.  When Nicole made a request for funds for a heart monitor it was turned down.  The Welsh institute of sport had several and Mr Cooke was told that if Nicole wanted one so badly and we, the Cookes, were not so flush with money that we could simply go and buy the Polar Kit, and modern computer to run it all on, then she could borrow one from the institute.  So that meant picking up a monitor and recording events on it and then taking it into Cardiff to get the traces downloaded and then getting a file back that we could not look at because we did not have the software so we then either simply looked at the print out of the trace or going back into Sophia Gardens to view it all on their computer, where relevant detail could be looked at.  Now I write all that because up to the next event any training ride of any length – we, that is Nicole and I, sometimes also with her brother, did it together, but that all changed.  It changed after I rang and spoke to the sales and marketing manager at Polar at Southam who asked me to send in a portfolio of cuttings and letter from Nicole and the outcome was a state of the art Polar monitor and software and the Cooke family raided the piggy bank and bought a new computer for the software.  We started off with full downloads of the Maindy track league and the club 10 and quickly it became every ride including going to school – a ride which we also did together the three of us – every single day.  Nicole and I became so accomplished at analysing the club 10 that heart responses could indicate small conks on the A48 so we could divide each time trial up into individual sections and compare those.  This was in place whilst Nicole was 14, the time Leg’s describes.

So again, whilst it might sound like a nice tale, in your head, Legs, the newspaper purchase is another entire fantasy, struck out by polar training files.  If her evil father took a day off and did not go and do the exact same training as his daughter, doubted that the exhausted wretch who turned up knocking at the door, begging to be let in, and was unsure whether or not his idle and deceitful daughter  was telling the truth – it was simple –  download the training trace and match it to topography.  Prior to that we had done every long ride together.

OK so now to some stuff which, whilst Legs does not actually say he saw Nicole, he describes it “she’d come out on winter road rides with the club wearing SS jersey and shorts in the freezing conditions”.

What club is this?  At 14/15 she can’t drive so she can’t get into Cardiff to join a club ride.  We were in the Cardiff Ajax so, again we never ever did club rides, because they all started 20 miles away, apart from the Feb 100 reliability ride and that was only a couple of times one of which when she was rehabilitating.  An occasional summer evening bash out of Maindy in the school holiday if she could make an excuse to get into Maindy was about as close as anything there would get to what Legs describes.

And this short sleeve nonsense – it is south Wales – it is either raining or about to rain.  One cannot take liberties as you describe and become holder of both the Senior British Road Race title and Senior Cyclo Cross (winter training) before you are 20 (beating the world silver medallist – Louise Robinson on the way to the cross title) with behaviour you ascribe.  It is simply not factually possible.  A highly trained body is one near a knife edge.  Too much and you are over the edge.  Taking dumb liberties with substantial risk, for no gain is not something elite athletes do.

<“Her dad said ride until you cannot ride any further”   Nonsense on two counts, one, if any person said such a thing it would be crazy but if any athlete tried to comply that would be even more stupid.

Have a look at Nicole’s wiki page.  Early life.  Her comprehensive school was at that time one of the largest in Wales. The one boy and one girl each year who get the Rankin prize have not just achieved all top grades at A their levels, they need 100% in quite a few of the module exams.  Zero errors in A level papers.  Nicole’s first claim to fame was when she passed Maths GCSE at the age of twelve.  The BBC took up the story and famously they asked her what she wanted to do in later life and it was nothing to do with maths it was to win gold at the Olympics.  Match that with Peg’s testimony and you will understand the dull, browbeaten rider of your description is most definitely not Nicole.  But in the factual achievements I have described and the individual Peg has described, there is now a young girl who could be terrifying to a certain type of male.  A male that might then harbour a grudge, might harbour a grudge for many years.

So let me digress from your post.  I am actually spending my time replying because weird posts from a total stranger, disparaging her, for seemingly no apparent reason, is not a unique experience for Nicole.  After all, her success came when British men were not achieving anything and so there were reasons aplenty for some men to “object”.  I’m now going to give you, Legs,  the benefit of the doubt and suggest that in posting what you did, you were not posting up all firsthand experiences but one partial firsthand experience and then a lot of what was told to you over a cup of tea at a lunch break in the ride.  So let me suggest one ride which might have generated a few tall tales which you have then recounted – twice – with a gap of 11 years – on these forums.

It is a Saturday morning. Early October.  Nicole is 14 and we are doing our normal Saturday morning ride together. Out the house, Bridgend, up to Llangeinor, over the mini Bwlch , then to Nantymoel, the Bwlch,  climb up before dropping down to Cymmer then over the top to Caerau before back to Bridgend and home.  Under 3 hours depending on weather and conditions.  This day it was awful.  A huge westerly wind blowing in rain squall after rain squall.  We made Nantymoel and Nicole does  not leave me on the Bwlch to do a timed effort to the top (heart rate monitor records the event)  because she does not want to wait at the top getting cold.  So there is no respite for me, I have to make my best effort up the climb.  We get to the top of the Bwlch and turn left, with me on my limit and then she leads out at a terrific pace up the climb going west.  We are riding straight into the teeth of the gale.  At times, in the squalls, visibility is under 25 metres.  We are meant to be doing sequenced turns on the front but I am out of gas and she offers very little shelter so it is all I can do to hang on.  Suddenly we are on the back of a university club run, a biggish group of 12 riders who all offer a body profile that can give me a rest and they are going more slowly than Nicole.  One rider I know because he is from the New Forest CC and we have seen him at youth cyclo cross events years before.  I engage him in conversation.  I did not know he was at college in S Wales.  He describes what has brought him there.  He has just started uni. The meeting is pure chance.

I am relishing going at a slower pace and having some shelter.  Somebody asks me if there is a cafe or somewhere to get relief from the weather.  I advise that after the descent, and a serious climb out of Cymmer, there is a nice warm dry cafe in Maesteg. I am asked if we intend to stop there.  No.

Nicole has gone forward and then comes back to where I am sheltering.  She gives her instructions.  No words are needed, she as she has modelled her non verbal communication skills on her mother’s supreme examples.  A sustained stare writes pages.  Nicole informs dad he is an idle slacker who is holding back her vital training.    We have a training schedule to complete and the heart trace will be scrutinised in awesome detail so dad must not be allowed any event that lowers the trace.  No words.  I might be useless as a training partner doing bit and bit into this howling wind but the very least I can do is follow her lead.  And off we pedal, away from the 12 or so university club riders – all big strong young men in the prime of their physical lives.  Enjoying male company in one of the toughest of sports, as they have done for years.  One tiny girl with her dad traipsing behind– disappear ahead into the wind and rain and they are not stopping.  What’s not to hate for those young men.  Humiliated.  For several, if not them all, this may well have been their first ever ride into the mountains of south Wales when weather conditions were so bad.  It might also have been their first ever encounter with an elite cyclist of the opposite sex.

And yes we were in shorts and the weather is bad.  Why? – it is south Wales.  Westerly winds bring  rain, warm damp rain and lots of it.  Cold winds in S Wales come from the north but are dry.  This day would be a typical westerly day.  On a ride of 3 hours one might go through 20 or more rain squalls, one every 10 minutes.  If leggings are worn they would get permanently wet for the whole ride and would not dry out.  Even with goodish quality over-trousers they would be soaked and clinging after the first hour.  Knee movement would be restricted and it would be 2 hours of frozen legs and very sore knees.  Skin is waterproof.  It rains.  Socks and shoes will be soaked but 2 minutes after a squall – legs will be dry and free to move, no wet sticky leggings restricting knee movement.  I’ve got three jobs trying to keep the bank of M&D solvent, Nicole is full on at school and trying to deal with BC.  We do not have the luxury of the out-of-work rider or professional, being able to select a training time to dodge the rain.  It is Saturday morning; it is the 3 hour ride.  Back and showered before lunch and then an afternoon of work.  If it rains, that will be normal and the wind is a warm westerly, it is not that cold.

And another element of truth in your account Legs, but not as you describe.  Perhaps the audience was in no shape to take the joke, given their physical condition, the weather and those egos.

I am positive my own experiences of starting club riding are similar to many.  I started at the age of 9 accompanying my older brother on a tandem.  Much advice passed on is worthy and some gems can be with you a whole lifetime.  But not all advice falls into that category.  Some give advice when it might be best they remained silent on the topic.  The lazy trump from the older cyclist to justify some bizarre application of “experience” to support some highly dubious activity could be paraphrased as “because it will toughen you up”.

Ask a stupid question; expect to get a stupid response.

Are we nearly there yet?

Give it another 30 minutes hard riding and we will be nearly half-way  there.

It’s raining; can we stop. Why do we have to keep riding?

Because it will toughen you up?

Almost, universally, the response is accepted for the comedy it is.

From all the foregoing you will see that Nicole together with her brother and myself ploughed a lonely furrow.  People do ask daft questions.  (People do write daft comments on forums.)  Daft questions sometimes do not warrant the time expended giving them a full answer explaining why the question was ridiculous.

Certainly, Legs,  whilst most of the words you ascribe to me are false, I can assure I responded with the quip you quote “because it will toughen me/you/Nicole/whoever up” on those occasions when the question demanded no better response.  I may well have used it to one of those students struggling into a gale on the top of a mountain soaked to the skin with dripping wet leggings when they asked me why I was not stopping at the cafe in Maesteg.   Maybe Nicole used it when asked some dumb question about why she was not wearing leggings.

But now, at the end – back to Ken Matheson, where does he fit in?

Well, a post of untruths on a forum, that everyone else ignores,  is hardly a big matter.  I only came across Legs’ comments by chance.  I totally missed his nonsense from 11 years ago.  Lottery money changed all manner of things.  Ken described some of those in charge of athletes at British Cycling as “crooks thieves and cheats”.  I wrote an account of many an incident to the management of British Cycling in which it would be hard not to draw the identical conclusion.  Many described as such by Ken, also hated Mr Cooke and his daughter because we attempted to, and occasionally succeeded in, exposing them.  The guy with his porno mags was an easy solve.  Support staff deliberately sabotaging Nicole’s bike before World Championships so she lost a gold medal and then coaches lying about the sequence of events to give cover for that individual, is another matter entirely. I could write a very large book.   I had a few victories but many more wriggled free.

Bad mouthing.  It was at times awesome.  Nicole Cooke did this; her dad did that.  One organiser returned Nicole’s entry to an event because she was so upset with what Nicole had done.  When the true account was given and an independent witness spoke to the organiser to confirm that what the organiser had first been told was a total fabrication designed to cause “difficulty”, the matter was dropped.  Legs, just maybe, someone told you, what someone told them and maybe the motive for ascribing such plainly ridiculous behaviour to either Nicole or myself was not out of some burning desire to expose a hidden, but vital, truth, but something far more base.   Ken described them well “crooks thieves and cheats”.  Sutton performed at Manchester, just as he did in South Wales prior to his move. He must have fitted into the team well there because it is a fact that he worked there for fourteen years.

It has been a long write.  It will be a long read.   Perhaps a simple quip would have sufficed, but on second thoughts….all is presented and those who wish to read both accounts, can read both and then make up their own minds.

Well, FWIW, I don’t know a huge amount about Nicole Cooke but I do know that, compared to many other sportspeople, she doesn’t say a lot – but whenever she does, it is worth listening to. And as an anti-doping absolutist, she is definitely in the right on that one.

Victoria Pendleton – the media persona, maybe her actual persona has elements that I find mildly irritating. But, TBH, it isn’t actually a reasonable expectation that everyone, if being truly themselves, pleases everyone all of the time. What Pendleton achieved in cycling is what should matter. And I doubt she’d give a **** what I think should we ever meet. Life is too short to worry about what strangers think. What they write is something different, hence the post above, I guess.

As a kid, I played cricket to a decent standard. Against the likes of Flintoff, Tudor, Swann (with him a few times as well). Even then I remember bits of lads and parents rubbing each other up the wrong way. Freddie Flintoff, I thought of as a bit aloof, TBH. But looking back, I would see that he’d already had stress fractures on his back (that could have ended his aspirations) and was so powerful with the bat that it could seem almost personal when he was whacking my bowling to all parts. No one has an objective view ‘in the moment’, IMO. In any case, he was simply a much better cricketer than me.

Just my tuppence worth.

Edit: similar to Wiggins IMO, despite now saying how he hated cycling and was now done with it, he was on Lance Armstrong’s TDF podcast recently.

It was the Forward, not the TdF. This has sometimes been quite interesting but I found the Wiggins one a bit overfull of self pity on both sides of the room…

Bloody hell,  can anyone summarise that essay up there please.

Mr Cooke, thank you for your long and detailed post, thank you for taking the time and trouble to correct the record. Truth is important, good luck with your life and to your daughter too. I recommend Nicole’s book to everyone, the only one I’ve kept as the others, Wiggins, Armstrong, Millar went in the bin!

@grahamt1988 take the time to read it, it’s educational!

Bloody hell, can anyone summarise that essay up there please.

Man on Internet said some things about another bloke and his relationship with his successful daughter.

Other bloke had his attention drawn to it and had refuted it at great length.

In fairness to Cooke Snr, I imagine he’s been through the mill with all the other goings on around courts and British Cycling and now he is inured to rebutting things in great detail and with great specificity.

It’s a different take on the standard STW methodology of just outright calling someone a liar and then owning them with bombers. Or weeing in their shoes. Or bumming their dog with frozen sausages. Or refusing to address the point at all.

I know this thread is going to go a different way now, but just for the record, I personally was actually interested in how much weight Victoria Pendleton could squat

Nicole Cooke winning the Olympics in 2008 is one of my favourite sporting moments.

@tonycooke

Thanks for a great account. I hope that the cycling establishment in Wales and team GB has improved since your time dealing with them.

Edit: Nicole’s book sounds good too. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breakaway-Nicole-Cooke/dp/1471130339

I actually enjoyed reading all that. Thanks Mr Cooke.

Bloody hell,  can anyone summarise that essay up there please.

Ffs, just take five minutes and read it. I find it incredibly rude when people spend time writing something in depth on the internet and the first response they get is either an image saying”wat” or a glib TLDR. It’s not big or clever, it’s just showing ignorance.

Mr Cooke is obviously writing from an emotional place, after all he’s responding to very public criticism of himself and his daughter, so I think we can forgive him his writing style, no?

I’m reminded of a story about Stuart Broad in Sydney during an Ashes series after he’d middled one to slip in the previous series in England and stood his ground.

A group of England players, including Broad, were on a rare walk around in the city when they saw a young bloke who looked a bit studenty – wearing a T-shirt with the words “Stuart Broad is a Shit Bloke” emblazoned on the front. The players thought it would be amusing if Broad asked him if he knew the whereabouts of a decent pub – expecting the guy to run away or squirm etc. Broad goes over and asks the question…

The guy says “nah, sorry mate, I’m not from around here” and suggested asking someone else. He had no idea who Broad was and had presumably not watched much cricket. It was just a funny T-shirt that he thought was amusing. He’d probably heard vaguely about something and thought “I’ll get one of those”.

Well, I read it all.  Now I’m going to find a copy of The Breakaway.

VP’s book “Between the lines” is well worth a read. I think she’s quite a tortured soul for a number of reasons. What I know of her I like & respect. Her achievements speak for themselves. Their seems little doubt that British Cycling was a hard place to be for a woman during her time coupled with other factors in her life making her time their arduous. I don’t think there’s much fabrication in her story of any at all!