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| Start of the road race. Me on far left... before the carnage occurred. |
At some point in
every cyclist's career, they are going to experience a fall. It's pretty much
inevitable, whether it's physically falling off your bike, a fall in form, or
as we have seen recently in the case of Lance Armstrong, a fall from grace.
Picking yourself up, finding a way to heal and carry on after a fall can be
just as traumatic as the fall itself, especially if it was serious. How an
athlete approaches the recovery process will determine their longevity in the
sport.
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| Giving it all in the Pursuit. |
At the London 2012
Paralympics I was unfortunate enough to experience falls on several levels.
Going into the racing I was a favourite to win a medal as the reigning World
Champion in two different events (time trial and individual pursuit). And yet,
I walked (or limped) away from the Games without a medal. I experienced a fall
in form at the wrong time. Nothing major, but enough to keep me off the podium.
And in my final
race of the Games (the road race, in which I am not a specialist by any means),
I decided to lay it all on the line and try a different strategy than I might
normally have done. Rather than merely sit in the bunch and wait to either get
dropped mid-race or lose out in the final sprint for the finish line, I decided
I was going to try and spring a surprise attack right from the start. But my
plan lasted all of about four minutes. I went screaming into the first hairpin
corner at 40 miles an hour, lost control of the bike and ended up in a heap on
the side of the road.
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| Focused before TT |
Being the
competitor that I am, I immediately hopped up off the ground and attempted to
get back into the race. My bike was somewhat mangled so it took a few minutes
to try and get it working again. I was so focused on the bike that I failed to
see that I was also somewhat mangled. Mostly just missing skin from where I had
slid across the pavement at high speed. In the end I was able to get back on my
bike but it was only partially functional, so just finished the first lap and
had to pull out of the race.
I left the Games a
broken man. No medals (I missed one by a mere 1/10th of a second in the
velodrome), a broken bike and a broken body. But the one thing that wasn't
broken was my spirit. I had experienced falls on so many levels, but it has
only made me more determined to come back next year stronger in my desire to
win. I will have to look at every aspect of my training and equipment again to
make sure nothing is left to chance, and to learn from the mistakes that I made
this past year, but I have every confidence that I will bounce back even
stronger than before.
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| This is what defeat looks like. Lost by 1/10th of a second. |
It took several
weeks for the physical injuries to heal and the bike will be pretty easy to
repair. The blow that my pride took will take longer to heal, but this is what
I was alluding to at the start: how you let such things affect you can
determine your longevity in the sport. If you can find a way to carry on and
learn from these experiences, then you have a greater chance of thriving in
sport. Sport (obviously) has a huge physical component to it, but the mental
aspects are just as important.
And so as fall (or
autumn as they call it in the UK) begins, I know that I have a lot of work to
do. I want to be in Rio in 4 years' time but for now I am preparing for the
2013 season. One step at a time. There will be more falls ahead for me, but as
long as I can continue to pick myself up, I can continue to succeed.
