Beijing Olympics: Nicole Cooke's power can trigger off cycling gold rush

Beijing Olympics: Nicole Cooke's power can trigger off cycling gold rush

In Sydney it became known as the 'Queally Effect' – the way Britain's athletes were inspired by the unexpected sight of track cyclist Jason Queally straining every sinew to win the 1 km time-trial on the opening day of the 2000 Olympic Games.
In BeijingTeam GB will be hoping that pedal power can again kick-start their Beijing campaign, but this time the gold medal opportunity comes on the road rather than the track.

Amid all the pre-Games hype about how the Union Jack could fly five, six or even seven times in the Olympic velodrome, the fact that Britain have one of the strongest women's road-racing teams has gone relatively unnoticed.

But that is exactly how Nicole Cooke, star of the three-woman team likes it. The 25-year-old Welsh rider will have all the fame and attention she can handle if she wins a race she describes as the pinnacle of women's road cycling.

"For me, winning the Olympics is really my biggest ambition as a cyclist," she says. "I'm happy in myself in what I have achieved in the sport but I suppose winning in Beijing would promote my achievements beyond the world of women's cycling."

Cooke, who was short-listed for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award two years ago after winning the women's Tour de France as well as the World Cup series and rising to No 1 in the world rankings, narrowly missed out on a medal in Athens four years ago when she broke away with six other riders on the last lap of the 120 km road race but crossed the line in fifth.

The breakaway included two Australians, and every cycling textbook will tell you that numerical advantage in such a situation is likely to be decisive. Sara Carrigan's victory proved the point.

It has been a familiar story for Cooke, whose attempts to win one-off major championships have been continually undermined by the lack of team-mates to support her, but this time things are very different.

Joining here in Beijing will be Emma Pooley, 25, a superb climber who won her first World Cup race earlier this season and is ranked 13th in the world, and 33-year-old Sharon Laws, a rider with a mountain-biking background who moved to Australia a couple of years ago but was brought back and installed in Cooke's Team Halfords Bikehut after placing second at the Australian Championships earlier this year.

Laws' improvement since then has amazed British coaches, despite suffering a major setback when she hit a pothole during a training ride and broke her leg. She is now back to full fitness.

"I think we've got perhaps one of the strongest teams on the start line, so it's a fantastic opportunity," says Cooke. "It will mean that we will have a better chance of choosing the right race strategy, whereas when you are by yourself you've only really got one option. You have to stick to that option and hope it's the right one.

"With a team around you can cover everything. We may not quite be able to dictate the race but we can have a very strong influence on how we want the race to go. That's a big change in terms of the approach to the race, and then when we're actually in the race the knowledge that you have two people with you who you can call on and work together with is a big help."

Pooley and Laws will not be there just as cycling domestiques to shepherd Cooke to victory. Both will have their own designs on the big prize, particularly since the course ends with a long climb that should play to their individual strengths.

Cooke accepts the pair are rivals as well as team-mates but if any of them is going to win, they will all have to share the workload in covering attacks by other teams and launching their own.

"It's really about making the most of our opportunities," says Cooke. "If we can put the other teams on the defensive so that they are then reacting to our game plan, hopefully one of us can pull it off.

"What is very clear about cycling is that my chances will be increased by teams having to react to Sharon and Emma."

The trio's race strategy – "a theme with variations" is how Cooke describes it – has already been planned meticulously after she and Pooley drove the course and rode the mountain section during a team visit to Beijing in December.

Video footage was also collected and has since been studied over and over again. Cooke reckons she knows pretty much every gear change, though the three women will check the course again after their arrival in Beijing today.

"I've got a very good picture of it in my mind but I need to spend a bit more time going over it," says Cooke. "It's very important to study the course so that it becomes second nature and is one less thing to think about during the race."

Having raced only lightly this year, concentrating instead on her Olympic preparations at her training base in Switzerland, Cooke is excited about her prospects but accepts Holland's Marianne Vos and Italy's Noemi Cantele will be a major threat. The German trio also look a formidable outfit.

"I think there are a couple of other riders who have the favourite's tag but what a lot of people don't know about is the amount of background work we've been doing as a team, and in terms of our race plan I think we do have a great chance."

There may only be one gold medal handed out to the individual winner, but for Britain's three riders it will be all for one and one for all.