Right then. So, I’ve had nowhere else to write this and I want to clear things up in light of the recent inaccuracies written about myself and Jason in the papers. First things first. I am extremely excited about racing at the Commonwealth Games. With it being in Glasgow it will feel like another home games, which I think will be an amazing experience for all involved. I love racing my bike and I love racing and its what Im most passionate about. Unfortunately, I’ve been completely misquoted in the press as saying that the commonwealth games is not taken seriously. To be completely clear: This is not what I said. My comments were taken in isolation and a headline was created that didn’t reflect my comments properly and it instead sensationalised an inaccuracy. In other sports the competition is extremely strong. I was just talking about the sport of cycling and I was not criticising the Commonwealth Games in any way at all. It is a fantastic event. The importance of it to each individual however, will depend on their sport and sometimes the discipline. Either way, we are being invited to represent our countries so it is always an honour. The other aspect to this is that our sport’s funding is not determined by what we achieve at the Commonwealths. That is purely based around worlds and Olympics. Funding for our sport is vital as Im sure anyone can appreciate. To be completely clear - we were not talking about the money we get as individuals. I fully understand that for some people, the Commonwealth Games is huge and when I look back to when I got selected for Delhi it was huge for me too. It was a massive deal but then you realise that UK Sport funding is not determined on this. So there is less funding to go towards training camps and to keep our programmes going. The other misinterpreted comment was around the Women’s Tour de France (La Course by Le Tour). Now this is my opinion. I know its not how everyone sees it but its an opinion I have. I know I am a track rider and I dont/cant ride as far as a lot of the top women road riders. I have huge admiration for them and what they can and do achieve. For me I would love to see a womens Tour. But I think it has to start in a certain way and let it build into something huge. I think saying that it should be 3 weeks and the same distance as the men is unrealistic and could have a negative effect on the sport. If it is seen to be boring then viewing figures may drop and all important sponsorship may become hard to find? However if it is run something like the Women’s Tour that we’ve just had in Britain, then it could work very well. I personally think it should be staged over 10 days to begin with and built from there. We could even have a test run of longer stages and a longer race at say a race like the Giro, which we already have. But I also think that this isn’t the only way of growing womens cycling and that there will be some great ideas out there. I just didn’t agree with some of the ideas being put forward. I love the sport of cycling dearly and that is why I care about it so much and have opinions on it. The fact that these opinions where misinterpreted and then sensationalised is upsetting and frustrating in equal measure. So there we have it. Hopefully I have put the record straight and appreciate your time in reading this.
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 19:43:44 +0000
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