Victoria Pendleton

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Victoria Pendleton

Personal information
Full name	Victoria Pendleton
Date of birth	September 24, 1980 (1980-09-24) (age 27)
Country	United Kingdom
Height	1.65 m (5 ft 5 in)[1]
Weight	60 kg (130 lb/9.4 st)[1]
Team information
Discipline	Track
Role	Rider
Rider type	Sprinter
Amateur team(s)
	Mildenhall Cycling Club
Professional team(s)
	Team Science in Sport / Trek
Major wins
Sprint world champion (2005, 2007, 2008) Keirin world champion (2007) Team sprint world champion (2007, 2008)
Infobox last updated on:
March 29, 2008

Medal record
Competitor for  Great Britain
Track cycling
World Championships
Gold	2005 Los Angeles	Sprint
Gold	2007 Palma de Mallorca	Team Sprint
Gold	2007 Palma de Mallorca	Sprint
Gold	2007 Palma de Mallorca	Keirin
Gold	2008 Manchester	Team Sprint
Gold	2008 Manchester	Sprint
Silver	2006 Bordeaux	Sprint
Silver	2008 Manchester	Keirin
Competitor for  England
Track cycling
Commonwealth Games
Gold	2006 Melbourne	Sprint
Silver	2006 Melbourne	500m Time Trial

Victoria Pendleton (born 24 September 1980^[1]) is an English world champion track cyclist.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Success on the track 3 Build-up to Beijing Olympics 4 Glamorous image 5 Palmarès 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Early years

Born in Stotfold, Bedfordshire, she rode her first race, a 400m event on the grass track at Fordham at the age of 9. Pendleton showed her promise at the age of 13 and was spotted three years later by the assistant national track coach, Marshal Thomas. At that time she wanted to concentrate on her education, and was later awarded with a degree in Sport and Exercise Science from Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne. However, she enjoyed some success on the track as a student before graduating and becoming a full time cyclist.^[2]

[edit] Success on the track

Pendleton won one bronze and three silver medals in the British National Track Championships in 2001, while still a student. In 2002, she qualified for the England Commonwealth Games team, finishing fourth in the sprint. She again came fourth in the sprint at the 2003 World Championships in Stuttgart and the 2004 World Championships in Melbourne. She ranked 2nd overall in the World Cup for the sprint in 2004, winning the World Cup event in Manchester.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she finished 6th in the women's time trial and 9th in the women's 200m sprint

At the 2005 World Championships, Pendleton won her first major medal with gold in the women's sprint. She became the third British woman to become a cycling world champion in 40 years.^[3]

At the 2006 Commonwealth Games, she won silver in the women's 500m time trial and gold in the women's sprint in Melbourne.

At the 2007 UCI Track World Championships, she won the gold in the women's team sprint with Shanaze Reade, the individual gold in the women's sprint, and a third gold in the women's Keirin.^[4] She crowned this fantastic year off by being named the Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year for 2007, becoming the only cyclist to win the award in its 20-year history.^[5] Pendleton was also voted Sports Journalists' Association of Great Britain's sportswoman of the year for 2007.^[6]

[edit] Build-up to Beijing Olympics

She is now a strong favourite for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, after having considered retirement from the sport due to her disastrous 2004 Summer Olympics. Her build-up to the Olympics has been boosted by two gold medals at the 2008 UCI Track World Championships where she won the women's sprint, and the women's team sprint (again with Shanaze Reade); she was also second in the women's keirin.

[edit] Glamorous image

Pendleton has aroused a good deal of attention by posing occasionally for photographs that some appear to find mildly salacious. Most notable of these were one for the Observer Sports Magazine in which she emulated a naked pose that Annie Leibovitz had created for cyclist Lance Armstrong,^[7] and another in which she was seen crouching next to a cycle in a "little black dress" and wielding a spanner. Some believe that, despite the glamorous image that such photographs portray, a successful sportswoman should have no need to indulge in such activities and have queried whether Pendleton should, as they see it, trade on her undeniably good looks.^[8] However Pendleton herself has taken a rather self-deprecatory attitude to any criticism, observing, for example, that while she would be willing to be photographed wearing lingerie, "believe me, I don’t look that great in lingerie – not with all the work I do to get my thighs bigger and musclier".^[9]

[edit] Palmarès

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Website
• Profile at British Cycling
• Off the Bike - Victoria hosts the British Cyclosportive DVD - Cyclefilm
• Victoria's secrets - The Guardian
• Victoria Pendleton's secrets - The Times
• Profile at Cycling UK