1. You are one of Scotland’s ultimate winners.  What keeps you going, making you want to keep winning?

I think I’m just a naturally competitive person.  And I enjoy what I do.  The money isn’t good enough to be an incentive, so there is nothing else there to keep you going, training hard every day.  It’s not the racing, it’s the preparation for racing that is the hard part.  If I didn’t enjoy it there would be nothing to keep me motivated.

2. So is that the real challenge, the hours and hours of work in preparation for one race?

There are points in the season that seem a long way away from the main goal and you are injured or struggling with training, for me that is the hard part.  But you stick at it and plug away.  But I do enjoy it and that’s what keeps me going every day.

You don’t enjoy the physical pain of the training.  When you are doing the sessions you are just trying to get through them and do the best you can.  So while you’re on the bike you’re not enjoying it but it is the sense of satisfaction at the end of the session that you’re looking for. 

3. Have you always wanted to be an Olympian?

Well because the standard wasn’t that high in Scotland I thought I maybe could make the Olympics.  It was the big carrot for me.  I think at the same time though I’m just a competitive person, and it could have been anything really.  Cycling just happened to be a passion from an early age. 

4. And your family encouraged you as well didn’t they?

They were always there to support me and give me the best opportunities.  If they hadn’t been as supportive there is no way I would be where I am now, purely because it takes a massive investment of time and money to get a kid going in these types of sports.  BMX had races in Southampton one weekend and then Inverness the next.  One year my Dad did 30,000 miles driving me around Britain to different races. 

5. How do you get that initial burst of power when you come out of the blocks?

The thing with this kind of cycling is that you’ve only got the one single, fixed gear.  So it takes one massive effort to get yourself up to speed, and you have to invest so much effort in that first half that you really pay for it at the end.  To get that explosive power it is just a lot of hard training on the gym and the track, and being able to apply that power in an efficient way.  It is just practice really.  Doing hundreds and hundreds of starts.

6. What do you think of Andy Murray?

I saw him play at Wimbledon, and I was so impressed by his character.  Obviously he has a lot of talent, great skills, strength, but it is his character that I have been so impressed by.  He has a winner’s mentality.

He just seems to have that battling instinct.  He’s not a ‘plucky loser’.  He‘s got talent and he’s got the right mindset to do it.  And he’s done it all at 19.  He’s got it all ahead of him and he’s got his head screwed on so hopefully he’ll go all the way.

7. What do you remember of your last Olympic Final in 2004, where you won gold?

I look back now and I think ‘how did I deal with that?’ because it was such a high pressure situation.  But at the time you are just doing simple things.  You are not over-complicating the issue.  You are not thinking ‘I can beat that or I can do this’.  All you are doing is thinking about your own ride, because you have no influence on anything else.  As soon as you start thinking ‘I hope he doesn’t beat that’, it distracts you.  

When the Aussie guy went up and did the first time, I realised that was about 3/10ths of a second quicker than I’ve ever gone before. And then as soon as I started thinking about that, I switched into the strategy I had for dealing with that in terms of visualisation.  You can actually only think one thought at any time, it’s the way the brain works.  You can think you are thinking two thoughts but it is only ever one at any specific time. 

8. How disappointed were you when they decided to scrap the kilo from the Beijing Olympics?

I didn’t believe it at first.  I just thought something would happen, because it has been the mainstay of track cycling programme since day one.  The sprint and the kilo are the two blur riband events.  And it was such a well known event, the public knew it well, it just seemed an obvious choice to keep in.  And there are other events in the programme which just baffle the average bloke in the street.  It is just frustrating.

There was a petition set up which we had about 12,000 signatures for, and I made a personal point of making the media aware.  But UCI don’t give a toss to be honest.  They have done so many things which the riders have been baffled by, not just on the track but on the road as well. 

9. And what do you see as your role in London 2012?

I still hope to be riding.  I’ll be 36.  Jason (Kenny) is 36 and he is riding in Beijing, so I do plan to go onto London.

I want to keep on going as long as I can.  If you aren’t crashing you won’t be picking up injuries.  It’s a fairly low impact sport.  The gym is the one area you have got to be careful but apart from that it is quite easy to look after yourself.

10. So if you see yourself at London in 2012, do you think you will know within yourself when it is time to call it a day?

It’s all about enjoyment.  I’ll keep going as long as I’m enjoying it and I don’t foresee any change in that at the moment.  But when it reaches the stage where I’m really having to drag myself down here and the young guys start coming through really strongly. 
It’s always nice to go out on top but then I also won’t stop early just for the fear of getting beat. 

I’d rather keep going as long as I am enjoying it.  I know if the time is right and if I get beaten and the younger guys come through then that’s fantastic, because they deserve it if they can do that.  If not, I think it would be worrying if all the guys at the next Olympics were in their mid 30s and there were no younger guys coming through. Something must be going wrong with the coaching and development if they can’t get some younger riders to be able to beat us by then. 

RO&KK
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