Mountain Biking: The high flyer from Mallorca

THE woman who answered the telephone in the council offices in Sant Llorenc, a sleepy little town on the Spanish island of Mallorca, was too concerned about getting on with her cleaning duties to answer any queries, until she heard the name Marga Fullana, the local heroine who won the bronze medal in the mountain bike world cup last year. That changed everything. She began to enthuse volubly about Fullana's latest achievements - the cleaning could obviously wait. The signs that the whole village are behind their favourite daughter were obvious.

The Mediterranean has become a popular place for cyclists to train during the winter months. Many teams fly out for a quiet week's work, and there are plenty of top riders to be seen on the roads of Mallorca at this time of year. But few fly like the girl from Sant Llorenc, who is now a leading figure with one of the big American teams, Specialized-Mountain Dew, for whom she will ride in Plymouth on Saturday in the British leg of the World Cup.

Fullana, who is in her mid-twenties, comes from a cycling family and goes into the race in third position in the World Cup after the first four legs. She began in the sport riding with her father and his team during their training sessions, where her talent was quickly apparent. She moved to mountain bikes when she realised that women do not have much of a chance of making a living in road racing.

So after a few years on the roads she took to the rough, and the transition was not smooth. "Racing these bikes is completely different to being on the road. My first race was really rough. We rode through a heavy storm and there were lakes of mud." Fullana learnt as quickly as she rode, however, consistently finishing in the front three and honing new techniques. "In mountain bike racing you are very much on your own. There is no chance of team work." The rules ban riders from receiving any external help during the races, so breakages have to be mended by riders or they run round the rest of the course carrying their bike.

The tactics are different too. "It is physically much harder, as you are riding against the clock all the time. It is really a continuous sprint. You just have to pedal as hard as you can from start to finish," she said.

The training programme for such an event is intense. The minimum daily session lasts three hours - either several return journeys to a monasteryperched on the top of a mountain near the village, or a stint behind Miquel Rossell, her companion and team mechanic, as he scoots along the lanes around Sant Llorenc at a fixed 50 or 60kph. The training is supplemented by a diet of racesthrough the island's villages.

The peak for women mountain bikers comes at around 30, and Fullana's game-plan is to be a leading player for a good few years yet. Being part of a US team is an important step. "It's fundamental for getting the support you need," she said. "We programme out the whole year, and I sit down with Miquel and my trainer and after discussing what chances we think I have, we decide what to go for."

Mountain biking is not yet a huge sport for women in Europe - "at a major race on the Spanish mainland there may be some 30 women, which is very few compared to the men" - but Fullana feels that is because of cycling's image as a men-only world. It certainly will not be in Plymouth, where her battle with Paola Pezzo, Italy's world champion, and the world's other leading women riderspromises to be spectacular.