Joanna Rowsell Shand: This is a huge year and, for starters, we want our world title back
On track for Rio
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Your support makes all the difference.The team pursuit has never been easy, so it’s always made me laugh when people assumed it was a token gold for Great Britain at the World Championships, which start on Wednesday in London.
If I go man one, it’s pretty much from the first kilometre that the pain kicks in. Then the more the race goes on, your legs are screaming and you’re gritting your teeth. It’s about getting the pain balance just right. If you don’t go off hard enough, then you’re left with too much at the end – and that’s no good. But go out too fast and you can burn out.
But you have to push the boundaries even in qualifying, which for us gets under way on Thursday, and you want to be left with the sensation that you’re completely empty. That suffering means you’ve ridden it properly.
Probably the hardest bit is afterwards. Getting off the bike and walking back to the pits before climbing on the turbo to warm down with all the lactic acid build-up is pure torture, but that’s exactly how I expect it to be in London this week.
I’ve lived in Manchester a long time now but I’m very much a proud Londoner and the return to the Olympic velodrome seems to get even more special with the passing of time. You inevitably get nostalgic looking at the apartments where we’d been housed in what was then the Olympic village and remembering everything that happened on the track at London 2012, from the excitement of it all, the nerves and the gold medal at the end of it.
Tracks can be very different and, being used to Manchester where I train, you often need time to adapt. For London, that’s not so much of a problem as it’s quite similar to Manchester, so we got down here on Friday night and had our first track session on Saturday.
For the first time in a while we start these World Championships not as defending champions after defeat to Australia in Paris last year. I wouldn’t say that defeat has made me any more driven, as I’ve always been hugely driven by a desire to carry on as world champion.
But what it showed people is that winning isn’t easy, that it was never guaranteed and that often we were winning by the tiniest of margins on the track. I promise you it’s never as easy as it might look and we’ve never for a second been complacent during our winning run.
Obviously, we want that title back and we want to get the world record back with it. It’s nice to be doing the chasing for a change.
The only time I’ve ever really worried about motivation was in the wake of the Commonwealth Games as, after winning that, it basically meant I’d completed the set. I was conscious the motivation might have dipped, but it didn’t and after just a couple of days I was already setting myself new goals. I guess that is just me as a person and I am looking to be the best athlete I can be.
This is a huge year for us. No disrespect to the World Championships but the biggest thing this year is the Olympic Games. We train to peak for that but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to be at our very best in London as well. For London, there’s an additional buzz and boost of having Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish back in the set-up. It makes the squad a very exciting place to be.
One of the reasons for British Cycling’s success, I believe, is that there are no egos in the team. Partly that was down to riders like Sir Chris Hoy setting the tone – one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet – and that’s the same with Brad and Cav. They’re happy to chat with anyone and help anyone out.
It’s my first World Championships since getting married last year and my husband, Dan, will be among those in the crowd.
I remember everyone asking if I was nervous on my wedding day but I wasn’t. If I’m honest, no nerves will ever compare to lining up on the start line for an Olympic Games in your home city. I love married life and I do feel different now we’re married. It’s a minor change but I do like saying “my husband”. I guess I just feel more adult and more committed – it does make a difference.
On the subject of nerves, they will continue to grow right up to the start of the competition, but the excitement of riding in front of a home crowd once again is always a big boost.
Will we top the medal table in London and Rio? I don’t know but we’ve had some phenomenal performances over the years within the team and it’s what we’re all aspiring for once more.
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