The Breakaway Nicole Cooke My Story.
The Sunday Times Sport Book of the Year.
“I was World and Olympic champion, British Cycling was receiving millions of pounds of Lottery money for the administration of the sport and yet they cared so little that they could not get me the right kit to wear, kit that a 12-year-old could have at the Helmond Youth Tour and all the other things. They couldn’t sort out a replacement headset on my bike, while my bike for Beijing had not arrived until July – at least it was earlier than the time-trial machine for Athens, but it was still too late.
We couldn’t get a whole team entered for the World Championships, leaving two women’s places blank. Why? By comparison, not a single man had finished from the full male team we had at Beijing in the road race, while Sharon had crashed, but cut and bleeding she had chased alone to the end. At Versese the next day, a full team of GB men would line up comprising professional riders Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, David Millar, Ian Stannard, Stephen Cummins and domestic rider Russell Downing. Of this illustrious list, Russell was the only one to finish, crossing the line in the main group in 28th place, 4:53 down on the winner. He at least recognised that when you wore a national jersey…
…….I didn’t need a crystal ball back in 2008 to predict that, by the time of writing six years later, while millions have been poured into a system to convert the male non-finishers at Beijing and Versese into world beaters, virtually nothing has come the way of the female road riders, whether it was Emma, Lizzie, Sharon or me.
Post-Beijing some media pundits, those who ignored all that the British girls achieved on the road, criticised British Cycling, denigrated their achievements on the track as being peripheral to the sport, due to the fact that so few countries had a serious attitude to track racing. ………..
…….The most obvious thing to do would be to do would have been to use my status as World and Olympic champion to negotiate for the best year’s pay of my life and join an established team. I might even have been able to persuade them to allow me to bring a couple of GB riders, but I couldn’t expect them to to ceate a team composed mainly of GB riders. My dream was to create a team that would act as a development opportunity for young female riders. I wanted others to have an easier route than I had. So much talent had been lost, ground down by the attitudes of British Cycling. I knew I would only ever have this chance once to do something this big in my life, and I wanted to take it, regardless of the men in the sport around me and regardless of the risk to me. …..
…..We worked with various specialists in sports marketing and sponsorship, and time and time again we were told of the corrosive effect on potential sponsors not familiar with cycling of googling ‘cycling’ and coming up with all the recent stories. Particularly galling was the effect on women’s product sponsors. As an attempt to attract sponsors outside the norm, who might have a commercial interest in women’s health and fitness, we were left with the understanding that no worthwhile brand was going to risk becoming contaminated by contact with a sport where lurid and fantastic tales of bags of blood-dominated search engine results.
In 2006, I had spoken out against the return of David Millar to the GB road team. David’s sister Fran was now promoted by David Brailsford to handle PR and potential sponsorship enquiries into British Cycling and direct them towards riders. That I seemed to receive only those enquiries turned down by other British Cycling Olympians did not surprise me.”