Photos thanks to Richard Owens ©2007
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Wendy Houvenaghel is one of the hottest prospects for a British medal at the 2007 World Championships in Mallorca later this weekend. Her current form is indisputable; at the recent UCI World Cup in Manchester, she rode 3.33.788 to break the UK record for the 3,000 m pursuit and clocked the second fastest time over this distance in 2007.
We spoke to Wendy at her hotel in Mallorca a couple of weekends before the 2007 Track World Championships, where she is with the British squad, who are enjoying one of the perks of the job, training in the warmer weather!
I have to start by saying congratulations on your World Cup win , I hope you are still thrilled with that?
Yes, thank you I am. Of course the main aim for me on the track this season is the World Championships, but it is all very well putting the emphasis on that competition, but when the TV cameras are on, you still feel obliged to do as well as possible, even thought the emphasis was not on Manchester itself.
Is that to suggest you can go even better at the Worlds?
Hopefully yes, because we had only been on the track a couple of weeks prior to the World Cup, we had just come off the road after doing a camp in January and February.
What result are you looking for at the Worlds?
I will be happy with a podium position in 3 weeks time. Nothing is ever guaranteed in sport, but I will do my best and my performance at the Manchester World Cup sets me in good stead for a podium place.
Who will you be watching out for at the World championships?
The people I will be watching will be Katie Mactier (Aus), the current world champion, Sarah Hammer (US) and then obviously Rebecca Romero (GB). She and I train together and she is very strong. In addition, there are always people that you don't expect from different countries, who can turn up to these competitions and do exceptionally well. So you can never discount anybody. The objective is to go as fast as I can, what anyone else is able to produce is out of my control. Whatever that yields medal wise is out of my control
Will your husband be watching at the worlds and how will he be feeling?
He should be yes. He is good at covering his nerves. He does tell me that he can get quite nervous for me but he is good at hiding that. It is hard for him because he cannot do any to alter what you are doing in competition, it must be hard to watch and just accept what is going on.
What is your preparation for the World Championships?
The training is broken into different phases, starting with a phase which is road based and then moving onto the track three to four weeks out from the competition. So that means when I go back to the UK, I will be doing nothing but track work for the next three or so weeks.
We will fly out 4 days before the competition just to settle in, and maybe pay a visit to the track. There will be UCI time that is specified for each country to use the track prior to the competition.
Is the track in Mallorca fast?
The Spanish nationals were held there just last month and looking at the pursuit times from the two Spanish girls, in comparison to the times they did in Manchester, it suggests the track is about one second or so slower. It is a new track, so there may be a period of time when it gets bedded in, but it is really hard to say at the moment because we have not been on the track to do any specific interval sessions.
Please tell us, how did you first get into cycling?
I first started cycling around the spring of 2002, I had taken part in the London Marathon and my background was predominantly cross country running. I decided to recover from the marathon by getting on a bike and not having to stress my body by doing more running. I got on the bike for six weeks and decided that I really liked it. My husband is a keen cyclist and I rode with him on various training routes and found that I could stay with him. At that point, he thought that I had some potential, so I went with him to some local time trials and had a go on a very basic bike and ended up doing really quite well. Then my husband decided to buy me a time trial bike.
So that is where it started. I tried time trialling only because my husband was involved with that scene and he did it as a break from work, for enjoyment.
Do you and your husband still train together?
Yes we train at weekends together. It depends where I am, I have not been in the UK much this year.
Do you miss working as a dentist?
I do in some respects, but I was keen to try and reach my potential with the cycling and so I finished my contract with the Air Force and took a part time job towards the end of 2004 and since then I started to improve significantly, just domestically. Then I had the opportunity to go along and do the pursuit at the 2005 British national championships and I won that competition.
It felt like you fairly burst onto the track scene winning the pursuit at the National Champs in 2005 and rumour had it that was only after only a handful of sessions on the track, is that how it was?
I had one three hour session when I learned how to ride a track bike. After that, I had two 2 hours sessions where I learned how to come out of a gate and a little bit of practicing a pursuit, so I suppose it was about seven to eight hours. So it (the national championships) was based on minimal experience and I managed to win that competition and I thought that I might have some potential with the pursuit.
Luckily the British coach, Dan Hunt, spotted that I had a little bit of potential and he knew I was working as a dentist at the time. He put me forward to ride a World Cup in Moscow in 2005 and I ended up qualifying fastest and came home with the silver medal, which was quite unexpected.
Then, after the Commonwealth Games (in March 2006), I applied to become a full time cyclist and that application was accepted. Since then, I worked my notice and in August 2006 I became a full time cyclist.
That must make a huge difference, not just in terms of training but also for recovery?
Definitely, that is the main reason why I am progressing quite rapidly at the moment, because my body has never had the opportunity to recover after specific training sessions. I have previously always been on the go; when I was not training, I was working and when I was not working I was sleeping. There was always restricted opportunities to rest and recover, so I am really pleased to have that opportunity now and it is making a world of difference to my performances.
What is it about the pursuit that you like?
As opposed to the bunch races there is an element of predictability about it. If you are producing certain times in training you can usually guarantee that you can do that in competition and when you do some back ground work and find what times other people are riding, you can predict how things may go for you. Of course, there is always the risk that something may go wrong, say with the bike, which hopefully will be minimal.
Photos thanks to Richard Owens © 2007
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What about the pain associated with riding 3,000m as fast as you can?
I think that is taken care of in training, where you can get your body used to all the lactic acid build up and the pain that you do eventually start to suffer. If you can deal with that in training then you can handle it in competition. It is just conditioning your body to dealing with that I think.
You have enjoyed a great deal of success and that must help you deal with it?
The winning is always worth the pain and the training. For me that is what it is all about, it is about nothing else but winning.
Do you plan as far ahead as the Olympics in Beijing in 2008?
That is about 18 months away now and it is my ultimate goal for the short term. Anything I do between now and August 2008 will be with a view to getting on that podium in 2008 and hopefully being at the top of that podium, but again nothing is that predictable and everybody wants to win.
What about London 2012?
At the moment I can really only focus on the Beijing Olympics because it is 18 months away. 2012 is not a long time in the big scheme of things, but training wise it is a long way to go, so I want to focus just purely on Beijing and see how everything goes in the build up to that. Then I will have to sit down with my coach Dan Hunt and discuss with him after that competition is over and done with, but certainly I would not rule it out.
Where do you think the main improvements will come from in your performance?
There are quite a few areas to be considered; the technical equipment, nutrition, rest and recovery, training and preparation. You need to address all of those aspects with equal importance to maximise your performance and how you are going to fare in competition.
Do tell, how do you get on with Rebecca? (A fellow pursuiter on the GB squad, Rebecca Romero has been second to Wendy on a number of occasions, both in domestic and international competition, most recently at the World Cup in Manchester)
Rebecca and I are out here with a few of the men's endurance squad and one member of the sprint squad. I regard Rebecca as a friend and we train together, live in the same area for most of the time, so it is important that we do get on well together and that we both help each other with the training and ultimately in competition. It is good to have Rebecca around and I have a lot of respect for what she has done in the past (Rebecca is an Olympic medallist in rowing) and what she is doing in the present.
We both train very well together and that means when the competition comes it should yield results. It is good to have a person to push you to your limits and get the most out of yourself. I hope that I help her and certainly she helps me get the most out of myself.
Do you have any final thoughts?
I am really appreciative of everything that my Coach Dan Hunt has done for me in the past 8 months. He has been fundamental in the success I am enjoying at the moment and he leaves no stones unturned when it comes to the coaching and when it comes to the preparation and on the competition day itself. Without him I would probably find it would be harder to yield that success, so he is doing a good job at the coaching of both myself and Rebecca
Andrea399
