WHEELS OF FORTUNE
Yvonne McGregor remembers the early days. How could she forget? A late arrival to the sport of cycling, she hungered for opportunities to compete. Not many races happened on the congested streets of McGregor's native Bradford, so she had to travel - except that she didn't have a car. "So, say the race was up near Preston on a Sunday morning, I would take off on my bike on Saturday afternoon, with a few clothes and a tent on my back. Close to where the
race was due to start, I would find somewhere to pitch tent and would padlock my bike to the nearest tree," she said. "It was the bike I worried about."
At the time, this spiritual daughter of Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin worked with physically and mentally retarded children in Bradford. Sport was for the weekend.
Running had been her first love and through messing around in the triathlon she discovered cycling. At the age of 27, she paid £50 for her first racing bike. Three years later, she decided cycling would be her first sport.
To begin at 30 in a sport at which you intend to excel is ambitious, but that has been McGregor's achievement. She won gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1994 and a year later set the world hour record for women. Her Sydney bronze medal is her greatest prize. If the feat is extraordinary, McGregor's ordinariness is what distinguishes her.
She carries her latest medal modestly. If anything pleases her, it is that she went to the Olympics and produced her best form. That didn't happen at Atlanta four years ago, when she came fourth: "I suppose I'm happy it happened in Sydney because these are the Games. Atlanta wasn't enjoyable, but it has been great in Australia."
Cycling suited McGregor. Endurance was an important requirement and she had plenty of that. She also understood how fast she could go and for how long. Some athletes never understand that tiredness at the end of a race costs you more than what you gain through a fast start. Without that feel for the right pace, McGregor wouldn't have got a medal. In her final pursuit race against Sarah Ulmer, of New Zealand, at the Dunc Grey Velodrome last week, McGregor trailed her rival on all 12 laps
but sustained her pace all the way and got ahead inside the last 200m of their 4,000m race: "I heard the gun go off on my side of the track first and then it was just tears."
Even though Jason Queally won gold and three men's teams won a silver and two bronze, McGregor's medal had particular significance. Not only was it the first for a British woman cyclist at the Olympics, but it was a spiritual triumph. What woman taking up a sport at the age of 30 dreams of standing on an Olympic podium? McGregor was 39 in April and is the team's Mother Superior. Three years older than team manager Peter Keen, she has lived with constant baiting over recent
weeks. The kindest cut is that she is old enough to be the mother of teammate Ceris Gilfillan.
When you've spent lonely nights in a one-woman tent all over the north of England, such talk just makes you smile. "The thing about my age is that I feel like somebody in their mid-twenties," she says. "And there are advantages. When I waited at the start for my race for the bronze medal, the velodrome was packed, there was a tremendous atmosphere in the arena and I felt I was the calmest person there."
Who better to explain why the Great Britain cycling team have performed so creditably? McGregor said: "Peter Keen, our team manager and performance director for the sport, drew up a programme that was very demanding. Basically, you had to perform to world-class standards to be part of the programme, but if you were part of it, the coaching and administrative sides were first-class. The plan was supposed to come to fruition in 2004 and we have been a little surprised by how well things
have gone here."
The impetus for a fine team performance came from Queally's gold-medal ride in the 1km time-trial. Nobody had expected that. Queally is naturally quiet and had moved unnoticed about the team's quarters in Sydney. "I actually believe he was shocked himself," said McGregor. "That victory was an inspiration to everybody."
Queally's ride ensured there would be no undue pressure on his teammates. In one kilometre, he had justified £1.77m of lottery funding for the sport.
It is certain, too, that building the indoor velodrome at Manchester has played a significant part. The international-standard velodrome allows Britain's track cyclists to train all year round and, in so technical a discipline, that has had an impact.
Cycling moves to the road this week, and medals will be more difficult to pick up. But Chris Boardman and David Millar will be expected to perform well in next Saturday's individual time-trial. Boardman won gold in the individual pursuit at Barcelona eight years ago but now, in his final season, he is not the force he was. Millar rode well in his first Tour de France last summer and by winning the Tour's prologue time-trial he proved he could compete successfully at the highest
level. At 29.7 miles this is a longer test, but it is flat and, with lots of corners, is very technical. That will suit Millar and it would be a surprise if he did not finish in the top five. Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich are the two favourites, but a medal is a definite possibility.
The men's and women's individual road races are more difficult to predict. Max Sciandri rode well to win bronze four years ago, but those years have taken their toll on the 33-year-old cyclist. He could, of course, point to McGregor's bronze medal and suggest that, if a 39-year-old could do it, why not he?
McGregor herself will be in the women's race, the mother hen watching over her younger teammates. "We have raced against the best in the world in road races this year," said McGregor, "and if things go okay for us, we've got a chance."
When it is over, McGregor will go back to Bradford, where there will be a civic reception to honour her achievement. Normally she is shy, but this is home and she is looking forward to it.
As for Athens, the 39-year-old says: "No. Too old." One more year and she's going to hang up her bike and zip up her tent. Maybe then she will have the time to meet a man. He had better be able to keep up.
DAVID WALSH
Sunday Times
