Pendleton's in the Dough, Now for London 2012!

As the pretty girl in the flat cap is pushing her bike up the hill, her wheels bobbling up and down on the cobbled pavestones and the basket in the front packed full of bread, it is little wonder that there is a smile on her face.

Victoria Pendleton, the new face of Hovis, is finally getting her hands on some dough herself, and not just the wholemeal variety, as she replaces the Hovis boy from the 1970’s in a modern day version of the famous TV commercial which has been on our screens since February.

It was filmed in mid-winter, not in the north where it is supposed to be based, but in the beautiful Dorset town of Shaftesbury, but nobody will care about this, least of all Hovis who would have been happy to have seen their girl win an 8th world title a fortnight ago in Copenhagen at the world track championships.

In doing so Victoria, 29, not only beat the long-time record of seven world titles held by Beryl Burton to become the greatest female British cyclist in history, but added to her long, overdue value after a 2008 Olympics in which she could only enter one event, the sprint – which she duly won – while Chris Hoy entered three, won three, and swept up every honour, award and contract going.

The TV ad is commercial recognition of Pendleton’s enhanced status in sport, and one she clearly enjoyed appearing in. “It was freezing cold but I loved the day’s shoot, and I loved the look, complete with the flat cap,” she explained, a girl who away from the lycra on the track has featured in many fashion shoots. “It was a bit odd pushing the bike as opposed to riding it, but I don’t think it would have worked if I’d sprinted up the hill.” It would have been the fastest delivery of bread in history.

Ironically the commercial, let alone the Olympic gold medal and the eight world gold medals, would never have happened had her father, Max, a former British national grass-track national champion, had not insisted on one final attempt without stabilisers in a Bedfordshire street.

“My twin brother Alex had already thrown away his stabilisers and I remember Dad pushing me up and down the street in Stotfold holding the back of the saddle,” Victoria recalled. “I had a horrendous crash and badly cut my knee. I didn’t want to do it again but my Dad insisted and we got it right. It’s fair to say if I’d had my way I may not have got on a bike without stabilisers again and, a few years on, there wouldn’t have been the medals and the titles.”

Brother Alex played his part in the story, too. “We’d race each other all the time, in the garden, in the street, and on holidays in the Lake District. Sometimes it would be a case of “race you to that tree.” I’d win at first, then he took over for a while, and then I hit back. The difference between us was that I wanted it more. He’d say to me: “Go on, you win, it means more to you,” and he was right. I got my competitiveness and talent for racing a bike from my Dad, I guess, but those races against Alex from an early age honed my racing skills.”

Fast forward 20 years and she is now the Queen of British cycling who has set her sights firmly on a crack at three gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics, after the International Olympic Committee decreed that women’s team sprint and the keirin should be added to the solitary individual sprint in the schedule.

Even though she managed this treble at the 2007 world championships in Majorca, Victoria, who got engaged to sports performance scientist Scott Gardner in January, is keen to emphasise that emulating Hoy’s triple Olympic feat in Beijing is anything but a given.“I think some people reckon I’ll just rock up, clear out all the golds and leave and I’ll try my hardest to do this, but it’s not quite as easy as that,” she said.

She has a point. At the 2008 world championships in Manchester she achieved two golds and a silver, the latter in the lottery that is the keirin, last year at the worlds in Warsaw it was gold, silver and bronze, the latter in the 500 metres sprint and a fortnight ago in Denmark it was gold, silver and fourth, the latter this time in the team sprint.

“Right now I reckon I’m on for one and half golds,” she predicted. “The team sprint is either gold or silver, while having just won the individual sprint again I’d be confident in London. In the team sprint I know I can produce the fastest second lap in the world but I need to be delivered to this point at a slightly higher speed. The keirin, though, is a gamble in which anything can happen.”

Hoy, however, proved that the treble is possible. “Well, although Chris and I are very different animals I recognise how he didn’t focus on the outcome but just on each race and that’s what I’ll need to do in London. It’s about getting into a groove, finding a momentum and not getting bogged down with stress and anxiety.

“You need to get up and then come down after each race, switching on when necessary, and then off to relax and recuperate. It’s a bigger skill and requirement than the physical side. If you’ve bagged two golds with one race to go can you sleep? Can you eat? It will be hard but I hope I’m in a position to find out for myself in 2012.”

Don’t we all. And if she pulls it off you can expect to see a lot more of Victoria Pendleton off the track than simply pushing a bread basket on wheels.

Victoria Pendleton has launched Hovis Wholemeal Breakfast Week to encourage the nation to try Wholemeal bread for breakfast. Visit www.hovisbakery.co.uk