{"id":601529,"date":"2026-05-24T14:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/601529\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T14:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:40:08","slug":"victoria-pendleton-at-school-i-discovered-the-traits-that-make-an-olympic-champion-do-not-make-for-a-popular-teenage-girl-victoria-pendleton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/601529\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Pendleton: \u2018At school I discovered the traits that make an Olympic champion do not make for a popular teenage girl\u2019 | Victoria Pendleton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria Pendleton with a bike in 1991 and 2026<\/a>Victoria Pendleton in 1991 and 2026. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. Hair and makeup: C\u00e9line Nonon at Arlington Artists. With thanks to WWT London Wetland Centre, Barnes. Archive photograph: courtesy of Victoria Pendleton<\/p>\n

Born in Bedfordshire in 1980, cyclist Victoria Pendleton<\/a> is one of Britain\u2019s most decorated athletes. As\u00a0well as winning nine world championship golds, she won the gold medal in the sprint at the\u00a02008 Olympics and the gold medal in the keirin (a sprint following a speed-controlled start), as well as a\u00a0silver medal in the sprint in the 2012 Olympics. She retired from cycling in 2012 and is now a jockey. Her new book, The Fear Opportunity, is\u00a0published on 21 May.<\/p>\n

This was taken when cycling was a\u00a0hobby and nothing more. My family were on holiday in the south of France, not far from Saint-Tropez. That was my first solo racing bike \u2013 it was secondhand and Dad got it custom sprayed. My twin, Alex, had one, too. We were very proud of them.<\/p>\n

My dad was in love with cycling and he wanted us to experience that refuge. It was his therapy and his community. We started on a tandem, but as soon as Alex and I were old enough to get our own bikes, aged nine, we started grass track racing.<\/p>\n

At this age, I was very shy and timid, but I was content because I\u00a0had\u00a0a nice upbringing. My parents raised me not as a little girl, but as a\u00a0twinny. They gave Alex and me gender\u2011neutral gifts and Dad would take my brother cycling the same number of times as he would take me. I\u2019m grateful, because it gave me a\u00a0sense of capability, but I\u00a0soon discovered things are not quite as fair in real life as they were at home.<\/p>\n

Nowhere was I more aware of the limitations of being a girl than in the school playground. It was segregated into boys\u2019 sports pitches, and the girls were pushed to the peripherals to avoid being hit by a football. I found break time boring. Girls weren\u2019t encouraged to pursue sports at all, and I always thought what the boys did looked more fun and interesting \u2013 more physical and less psychological.<\/p>\n

I also soon discovered that the traits that make an Olympic champion do not make for a popular teenage girl. I\u00a0would play sports hard, always with full confidence and the intention to win. There was a lot of \u201cGet out of my way!\u201d I took everything seriously. Perhaps too seriously.<\/p>\n

For most of my teenage years, I\u00a0was an outcast socially, which was painful, because I really wanted to fit in. I\u00a0was a\u00a0people pleaser, and have since worked very hard to shift that habit. At\u00a0the time, the loss of control I felt from not belonging ended up manifesting as an obsessive compulsive disorder. I was obsessive over my food intake, and always hand-washing, often until they were red raw. I would especially enjoy art classes because there were lots of giant sinks, so I could go off and wash my brushes and my hands without anyone noticing.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI\u00a0attribute my fearlessness to a\u00a0childhood spent alongside a twin brother who gave me confidence in my physical abilities<\/p>\n

Then, one afternoon, aged 16, my life changed. The landline rang and a guy called Marshall said, \u201cI\u2019m from the British Cycling<\/a> Federation and we noticed your name popping up in the results of Cycling Weekly. Would you like to come and try out for the team?\u201d Dad was delighted. I was, too, but worried that making a career out of being an athlete was far-fetched \u2013 a\u00a0total fantasy. Luckily, I was wrong.<\/p>\n

I felt like such a fraud when I started cycling professionally. On the plane to my first European Championships, I\u00a0sat next to Bradley Wiggins. We were the same age, but he was an expert in his field and had already made a name for himself. I felt like I shouldn\u2019t be there, and thought, \u201cAt any minute, they\u2019re going to realise and kick me out.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until I won the world championship title a decade later, in 2005, that I stopped feeling like that.<\/p>\n

As my career progressed, I was surrounded by voices telling me I was too small, too puny, too feminine. While my dad\u2019s fierce belief in me kept me going, I retreated into the shadows, quietly absorbing every slight. My coaches compounded this, mistaking my smile and lightheartedness for a lack of seriousness. They never understood that I was already hard on myself internally \u2013 I didn\u2019t need anyone else to do it for me. I even got told off for reading a book once in the track centre when I was on the mat stretching, because it looked like I\u00a0wasn\u2019t focusing. Everything in my life was so controlled. In retrospect, I know they were trying their best with\u00a0the skills they had, but I would love to explain to some of them what an impact their negative comments had.<\/p>\n

Even though I had struggles along the way, some of the individuals that I\u00a0got to train with were remarkable. A\u00a0lot of the older cyclists looked after me like I was their little sister \u2013 Jason Quealy, Chris Hoy, Craig\u00a0McLean. They were role models and gave me healthy aspirations. Being part of that golden era of cycling in Beijing was a blast.<\/p>\n

By the time the 2012 Olympics came,\u00a0however, I wanted the world to\u00a0swallow me up. Being reigning world and Olympic champion running into home games was a\u00a0lot\u00a0to\u00a0cope with. A complete privilege, but terrifying. My face was\u00a0all over billboards and magazines.\u00a0Everyone\u00a0was asking, \u201cSo\u00a0you\u2019re going\u00a0to win?\u201d I\u2019d reply, \u201cI\u2019m going to try my best. Please forgive me if\u00a0I\u00a0don\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came the aftermath of winning gold. Life felt flat because I\u2019d\u00a0put so much energy into this one\u00a0goal and there was so much adrenaline pumping through me, and\u00a0then suddenly it was over. I\u00a0was\u00a0lucky that I was kept very busy\u00a0with sponsorship and corporate work. I\u00a0would just say yes\u00a0to everything, as\u00a0I\u00a0wanted to feel\u00a0preoccupied.<\/p>\n

The transition into retirement was\u00a0tough, and I experienced a\u00a0lot of\u00a0lows. It was like losing part of myself. For so long, my cycling performance was the only thing I\u00a0felt I\u00a0had to offer, and untangling that from\u00a0my identity felt almost impossible, especially when the people around you make it so clear they love you more when you\u2019re winning. To avoid those feelings, I decided to climb Everest, but I\u00a0suffered from hypoxia and had to pull\u00a0out<\/a>. At the same time, I was also going through a divorce. It was more than I was capable of dealing with. In\u00a0the end, I disappeared into the jungle and started surfing. It was the best therapy I could have asked for.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve since taken up extreme sports. I\u00a0attribute the fearlessness I have when\u00a0it comes to my hobbies to a\u00a0childhood spent alongside a twin brother. Having this brilliant person next to me going through life has given me so much confidence in my physical abilities. After Alex passed away [in\u00a02023, of a brain tumour], I\u00a0wanted to do something positive and explore that confidence twindom gave me. I got into horse racing and motorcycling. Horse racing in particular has been life-changing \u2013 it is\u00a0both dangerous and exciting, and now I can\u2019t imagine life without horses, being nose-to-nose with a big, soft, velvety creature.<\/p>\n

The girl in that photo would never have believed what she was capable of.\u00a0Given how little I thought I had to offer the world, I\u2019ve done so much more than I ever dreamed possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victoria Pendleton with a bike in 1991 and 2026Victoria Pendleton in 1991 and 2026. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-601529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}