Victoria Louise Pendleton (born 24 September 1980) is a British former track cyclist who specialised in the sprint, team sprint and keirin disciplines. She is a former Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth champion. She won three Olympic medalstwo golds and one silverduring her career.
Pendleton won nine world titles, including a record-equalling six in the individual sprint between 2005 and 2012. She also won world titles in the team sprint, in 2007 and 2008, and the keirin, in 2007. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, she won the gold medal in the sprint, and in the 2012 Summer Olympics, she won the gold medal in the keirin and a silver medal in the sprint. She also became a Commonwealth Games champion in the sprint in 2006 and a European champion in the team sprint and keirin in 2011. She retired from track cycling after the 2012 Olympics and had a short career as a jockey from 201516. Riding Pacha Du Polder, she won her first race at Wincanton in March 2016 and finished fifth in the Foxhunter Chase at the Cheltenham Festival later that month.
Pendleton was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours. She is a member of the British Cycling Hall of Fame.
Early life
Victoria Pendleton was born on 24 September 1980 and grew up with her twin brother and older sister in Stotfold, Bedfordshire. Her father, Max, was a keen amateur cyclist and former British National 8 km grass track cycling champion. He would take the nine-year-old twins out racing at the weekends and create children's races for them to compete in. She was a member of Mildenhall Cycling Club. Pendleton attended Fearnhill School and played hockey for Harpenden. She later said that the "traits that make an Olympic champion do not make for a popular teenage girl" at school, and that she felt like a social outcast, which she described as "painful".
At the age of nine, Pendleton rode her first race, a 400 m event, on the grass track at Fordham, Cambridgeshire. When she was 16, assistant national track coach, Marshall Thomas, invited her to a trial in Manchester, where she cycled in a velodrome for the first time. Thomas then assumed coaching responsibilities from her father. At that time, Pendleton did not envisage a career in cycling due to a lack of female role-models in the sport. She took a degree in sports science at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, and in her final year at university, she trained with British Cycling one week per month. After graduating in 2002, she became a full-time cyclist.
Cycling career 2001–2008 Pendleton finished second in the 500 m time trial, 30 km points race and the sprint as well as recording a third-place finish in the scratch race at the 2001 British National Track Championships. From 2002–2004, she trained at the World Cycling Centre in Switzerland, under the tutelage of Frédéric Magné. Pendleton found the experience challenging, her wellbeing suffered, and she self-harmed. She began deviating from her training programme, which upset Magné. Commenting on this period, Pendleton explained: "I had always feared letting down figures of authority, my dad most of all, and so I felt diminished by disappointing Fred." British Cycling sent psychiatrist Steve Peters to meet her. They began working together, with positive results. Pendleton later stated: "If it wasn't for Steve [Peters], I don't think I'd be cycling today."
Pendleton competed at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, where she finished fourth in the sprint. In 2003, she recorded another fourth-place finish in the sprint at the 2003 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. In the 2003 World Cup, she won the scratch race in Sydney, and the following year, she secured victory in the sprint at the 2004 World Cup event in Manchester. She then finished fourth in the sprint at the 2004 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she finished sixth in the 500 m time trial and ninth in the sprint. Pendleton later said that she was not ready both physically and psychologically for the Olympics at that time, and considered quitting the sport. At the end of the year, she won the keirin at the 2004–05 World Cup meeting in Los Angeles.
In January, Pendleton competed in a subsequent meeting of the World Cup in Manchester, where she claimed second place in the 500 m time trial. She then won her first world title after finishing first in the sprint at the 2005 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Los Angeles. She overcame Anna Meares in the semi-finals before defeating Tamilla Abassova in the final. She became the first British woman to be a track cycling world champion since Beryl Burton in 1966. At the 2005–06 World Cup event in Manchester, Pendleton won the sprint and finished third in both the keirin and 500 m time trial.
At the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, she won a silver medal in the 500 m time trial (behind Anna Meares). She then defeated Meares in the final of the sprint to secure the gold medal. The following month, at the 2006 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Bordeaux, Pendleton was unable to defend her world sprint title. She finished runner-up after she was beaten by Natalia Tsylinskaya in the final. In the keirin, an incident with rival Anna Meares caused Meares to be relegated and left Pendleton unable to challenge for a medal. Meares apologised afterwards, but the incident started a long-term rivalry between the pair. Pendleton won three gold medals at the Manchester leg of the 2006–07 Track Cycling World Cup, securing victories in the sprint, keirin and 500 m time trial.
At the 2007 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, she won the team sprint alongside Shanaze Reade, the sprint (overcoming Guo Shuang in the final), and the keirin. In December, she won gold in the keirin at the 2007–08 World Cup event in Sydney. At the end of 2007, she was named Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year and the Sports Journalists' Association's Sportswoman of the Year.
Coming back from illness and a knee injury, Pendleton finished second in the sprint at the 2007–08 World Cup meeting in Copenhagen. During her build-up to the Olympics, she won two world titles at the 2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in the sprint (overcoming Simona Krupeckaite in the final) and the team sprint (with Reade). She was also second in the keirin. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Pendleton won the gold medal in the sprint, defeating Anna Meares in the final. Her success made her the first British female cyclist to win a gold medal in the sprint at an Olympic Games. Pendleton was critical of the Olympics, pointing out that only three medal events in track cycling were available for women, whereas there were seven medal events in the men's Olympic schedule. Only one of the women's races was in a discipline that Pendleton competed in, and she said she felt "sick" by the decision.
In October 2008, Pendleton joined the Sky+HD Trade Team. In the 2008–09 World Cup, she won three gold medals at the meeting in Manchester, triumphing in the keirin, sprint and 500 m time trial.
2009–2012 She retained her world title in the sprint at the 2009 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Pruszków, with a photo-finish victory over Willy Kanis. In addition to her world sprint title, Pendleton also finished second in the team sprint (with Reade) and third in the 500 m time trial. In the 2009–10 World Cup event in Manchester, Pendleton finished first in the sprint and second in the 500 m time trial.
At the 2010 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Copenhagen, Pendleton again retained her world sprint title. She defeated Anna Meares in the semi-finals before overcoming Guo in the final to achieve victory in the event for the fourth year in succession. She also finished runner-up in the kierin. Later that year, she won her ninth consecutive British sprint title at the National Championships. She also won the 500 m time trial for the eighth time, her 25th national track title overall. Pendleton chose not to participate at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in order to focus on the upcoming European Championships. There, she won a silver medal in the team sprint with Jessica Varnish. In the 2010–11 World Cup, Pendleton won silver medals in the sprint and team sprint in Melbourne, before securing gold medals in the team sprint and keirin in Cali.
At the 2011 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, Pendleton came second in the team sprint (with Varnish), third in the sprint (losing to Anna Meares in the semi-finals), and finished seventh in the keirin. Her third-place position in the sprint meant that she failed to become world sprint champion for the first time since 2006, and she later said that this had affected her confidence and led to self-doubt. She stated: "The worst thing you can do is start doubting what you do. As soon as you start doubting your training programme and over-analysing it, you just start spiralling down." Partnering Varnish, Pendleton won the team sprint in the National Championships. At the 2011 European Track Championships, Pendleton won the team sprint and keirin titles, and finished eighth in the sprint.
In February 2012, Pendleton and Varnish set a new team sprint world record of 32.754 seconds while defeating the Australian pairing of Kaarle McCulloch and Anna Meares at the Track World Cup race in London. In Pendleton's final World Championships, she won the women's world sprint title for a record-equalling sixth time. She progressed past Anna Meares in their semi-final on a photo finish before defeating Simona Krupeckaitė 2–0, with the second win coming from a relegation to her opponent. Pendleton finished without medals in her other two events, the keirin and the team sprint.
At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pendleton and Varnish broke the world record in the qualifying stages of the team sprint before being disqualified in the semi-finals due to an illegal change-over. Their world record was then beaten by China later in the event. She recovered to win a gold medal in the keirin, becoming the first British woman to win an individual gold medal at successive Olympic Games. Pendleton set a new Olympic record of 10.724 seconds in the qualifiers of the sprint, but lost in the final to Anna Meares. Pendleton was relegated in the first run and beaten in the second run, finishing with the silver medal. This was Pendleton's final competitive race before she retired from professional cycling.
Later developments In 2016, Pendleton, reflecting on the end of her cycling career, said that she had not enjoyed the atmosphere at British Cycling, stating: "I couldn't stay working with those people", adding: "If, four years ago, they'd made the changes that they’ve made now, I would've been a lot happier." She also stated that her professional relationship with coach Shane Sutton had deteriorated between the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. In 2016, British Cycling carried out an in-house inquiry following allegations against Sutton by Pendleton's teammate Varnish. Sutton was cleared of all but one charge (using sexist language), but in 2017, British Cycling conceded that the organisation's achievements had "come at too high a price."
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