Nicole Cooke, Cycling Role Model ?

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

Beryl Burton forever!

+1

Beryl did us all proud .... Shame she is not better known amongst modern cyclists .....

IIRC she also beat men.

[landsurfer]

Hi,

Beryl Burton forever!

+1

Beryl did us all proud .... Shame she is not better known amongst modern cyclists .....

IIRC she also beat men.

+1
But was then ignored ......

[Grandad]

For a detailed account of Nicole' achievemets (despite British Cycling) read her hard hitting, no punches pulled autobigraphy The Breakaway.

NATURAL ANKLING wrote:
Hi,
landsurfer wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:
Beryl Burton forever!


+1

Beryl did us all proud .... Shame she is not better known amongst modern cyclists .....


IIRC she also beat men.

She beat men quite regularly.When a man set a new 12 hour record Beryl was in the same race and rode even further.

Imagine the reaction if this happened today in a marathon.

[Spinners]

For a detailed account of Nicole' achievemets (despite British Cycling) read her hard hitting, no punches pulled autobigraphy The Breakaway.

Agreed. A superb book.

[reohn2]

For a detailed account of Nicole' achievemets (despite British Cycling) read her hard hitting, no punches pulled autobigraphy The Breakaway.

Agreed. A superb book.

From a stand up woman of the highest degree of professionalism,a truly good egg and great athlete.

[TrevA]

I have great respect for what Nicole did on a bike, she's the 2nd best ever female rider that we've ever had in Britain, after Beryl.

But I can't say that I like Nicole as a person. She does seem to have a chip on her shoulder and has cried wolf a bit too much. She always came across as not being a team player. Her attitude towards Lizzie at the 2012 Olympics was appalling.

If she has firm evidence of doping or wrongdoing in cycling, then lets see it, but much of what she says is opinion and conjecture and smacks of sour grapes if you ask me.

[thirdcrank]

... She always came across as not being a team player. ...

Yup.

[landsurfer]

... She always came across as not being a team player. ...

Yup.

+1

[Vorpal]

Do we think then that Cooke and Pooley (for example) where successful in spite of BC not as a result of support provided by BC ?

Cooke & Pooley are incredible athletes who succeeded despite a system stacked against them. Yes, BC supported them. Maybe not as well or consistnely as they should have.

If they had had the recognition and support from a young age, the way men would have, how much more could they have done? Nicole Cooke won the Women's Naitonal Road Race Championships at 16. She was the youngest and the first Briton to win many of her subsequent titles. How good do you think she could have been if she had had access to the same resources that a man would have had, right from the beginning?

p.s. How is it that when Cav 'rides for himself' he's a hero, and when Nicole Cooke does it she's a selfish ******? Or when women teammates don't get along for any reason, they're cat fighting, unprofessional, or worse. Men do it, and it's a 'feud'. Or nerves. Or they're said to bicker like brothers. But unprofessional? Of course not.

[Spinners]

For me, Nicole Cook is the best female cyclist Britain has ever produced and I'm not overlooking Burton, Pendleton or Trott.

[pwa]

I have no idea whether Niclole is right in her criticisms. But I am sure that whatever she says is what she really thinks. Her family live a few hundred metres from me, and we used to see her, as a teenager cycling the four miles to school, out of the saddle as though she were racing. Her dad is a lifelong club cyclist, and you don't want to get him started on the subject of doping. If he had his way anyone found to be doping would never compete again. So right or wrong, Nicole is the real thing. She has integrity.

I've just been watching the sports section of the news on the BBC. The men's rugby got loads of coverage and the women's got a few seconds. How can public interest be raised if coverage is so thin?

[thirdcrank]

The first time I saw - on Eurosport - Nicole Cooke racing was when she won her first junior world title and though EM was the Cannibal, it would have fitted her: total commitment. FWIW, I don't think there's anything to be gained by comparing riders from different eras and that's a point I've made before in discussions about LA and others. She certainly dominated her own era. Road cycling is a team sport which celebrates individuals. As standards have improved many of the support riders - team mates - have become better than the top riders of earlier years. A team like Sky has no journeymen. Mark Cavendish has been mentioned and on occasions, notably when he won the world road championship, the rest of the national team rode with the sole purpose of carrying him to the finish so he could sprint for the jersey and the plan worked. I don't follow these things anything like as closely as I used to do but I can't think of a case where Cav was selfish in the national team. (A rider who is employed as the leader of a trade team has different expectations in races competed by trade teams.) I'd suggest that if anybody is looking for examples of problems with men's egos the era of the TdeF being competed by national teams is a good place to start. I first became interested in (obsessed by ) bike racing in 1958 when "Judas!" was the fashionable insult. That was in the days of a few star riders, supported by domestiques of lesser ability and probably more race fixing than we 'd like to believe.

[TrevA]

p.s. How is it that when Cav 'rides for himself' he's a hero, and when Nicole Cooke does it she's a selfish ******? Or when women teammates don't get along for any reason, they're cat fighting, unprofessional, or worse. Men do it, and it's a 'feud'. Or nerves. Or they're said to bicker like brothers. But unprofessional? Of course not.

Compare the men's and women's road team at the 2012 Olympics. All the men committed to helping Cav to win, even though it didn't work out. Wiggo could have said "No I'm not doing that I'll do my own thing," but he committed to the cause. Compare that with Nicole and the women's team?

Cav has showed that he's not too much of a Prima Donna by fetching bottles for the team during the Tour, despite being the reigning world champion. Would Nicole do that for her team mates?

[Spinners]

Cav has showed that he's not too much of a Prima Donna by fetching bottles for the team during the Tour, despite being the reigning world champion. Would Nicole do that for her team mates?

Being a pure sprinter, Cav would do that on a mountain/hilly stage that he had no chance of winning so it's not at all relevant. In contrast, Nicole was such an all-rounder becoming a domestique would make little sense.

[TrevA]

Cav has showed that he's not too much of a Prima Donna by fetching bottles for the team during the Tour, despite being the reigning world champion. Would Nicole do that for her team mates?

Being a pure sprinter, Cav would do that on a mountain/hilly stage that he had no chance of winning so it's not at all relevant. In contrast, Nicole was such an all-rounder becoming a domestique would make little sense.

But in a bunch finish, Lizzie was the better sprinter, but Nicole still decided to do her own thing. She didn't seem to accept that she was no longer the No1 British rider. Compare her attitude to that of Emma Pooley at 2008 Olympics. Emma sacrificed her own chances so that Nicole could win. Would have been nice to see Nicole doing the same for Lizzie.