It's gold or nothing for Reade

It took 15 months for Shanaze Reade, the reluctant heroine of the Beijing Olympics, to come to terms with what she deemed as her failure to win gold, three months of which the serial world BMX champion contemplated walking away from her sport.

Never mind the fact that she was lauded from pillar to post, and that includes the then Prime Minsister Gordon Brown who wrote to her, for refusing to accept the nailed down silver medal she had in her grasp during the BMX final at the 2008 Games and going for a high risk manoeuvre in a bold, if not suicidal attempt for gold.

The disturbing sight of her crashing and lying sprawled and injured on the track as the other competitors all raced past is one of the enduring images from an otherwise glorious Beijing from a British perspective, but while the team revelled in its success the then 19-year-old from Crewe was left to slope back home badly injured and, in her words, to face many “dark days.”

Three years on and the now 22-year-old has blossomed into a mature woman, with a world silver team sprint medal to her name in 2009 achieved with Victoria Pendleton, and another world BMX title secured last year that confirmed to both herself and her rivals that the girl is back.

The track cycling is an area Reade is keen to explore after London but, until the Games are over next year at least, she is fully committed to winning the Olympic gold expected of her four years earlier.
The Beijing experience was traumatic for her for 15 months. Now she understands exactly why it happened, and believes because of her damning self-analysis that it is another crucial step for her claiming gold when it matters most, in London, in front of a British crowd.

“I expected to turn up and win gold in Beijing,” she admits. “It really was simple as that. I’d won every world BMX championship I’d ever entered and I assumed it would happen again.

“What I wasn’t prepared for was the sudden upsurge in media interest and the impact arriving at the Olympics had on me. Suddenly I wasn’t at a wholly BMX event. I was at the Olympics with the likes of Paula Radcliffe, Chris Hoy and other huge stars milling around. I went, in reality, from a village fete to the biggest event in the world. It totally threw me.

Her honesty is engaging but if she is to fulfil her destiny in London Reade needs to recognise just why it went so badly wrong. Today she is back to her perky self, and comfortable in chastising herself for her youthful arrogance and naivety.

Immediately after Beijing, however, it was a different story. “I went to a very dark place for quite a while,” she explains. “I shut myself off from the outside world completely. I didn’t socialise at all, not even with my friends and family.

“I assumed nobody would want to sponsor me after my performance in Beijing or to be a role model. I just felt as if I’d let everyone down. For two or three months, in a lot of pain from my hamstring injury, I was very close to walking away from sport and getting a normal job. The only reason why I didn’t was because I watched my Mum working so hard in a job she didn’t particularly enjoy at the time and it made me realise I had to give BMX another go.”

Her feared “negative reaction” to crashing out never materialised either. Led by the then Prime Minister Reade was praised for her win at all costs attitude. “I wasn’t expecting that,” she says. “Gordon Brown’s letter really helped to cheer me up.”

The road to recovery began inside a velodrome in a suburb of Warsaw where she and Victoria Pendleton added a world championships team sprint silver in 2009 to the golds the pair had won the previous two years. But the real turning point was in 2010 when Reade reclaimed her world BMX title.

“I really needed to win again on a BMW track,” she confides. “I won every lap which was an extra boost and I managed to put it all together. Winning the world title again was great, but the best thing about it was I knew then that I was back.”

She will go to Copenhagen in July to defend her world title, and then again in Birmingham in front of a British crowd in 2012 before her tilt at Olympic glory.

“I really do see Beijing as a blessing in disguise,” she adds. “It’s made me grow up. I’m only 22 now, but I feel I’ve put on ten years since the last Olympics. I’ll give it my best shot in London, but if it doesn’t happen for me, then it doesn’t.”�� �

Does she ever regret not now possessing an Olympic silver medal?

Reade smiles. “I’ve got a lot of gold medals back home,” she answers. “A silver’s just going to look out of place.”

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