*** Tearaway BMXer Can Strike Gold In Beijing ***
London, UK -- 02/11/2008
She is a streetwise 19-yearold, with a teenager's defiant attitude
towards anyone who tries to tell her what she can and cannot do.
But Shanaze Reade is also one of Britain's brightest hopes for a
gold at the Beijing Olympics this summer.
The girl who grew up in the narrow, red-bricked terraced streets of
Crewe,
where she admits she used to 'get up to no good' as she hung out with
her
friends, is the favourite to become the first Olympic champion in the
sport
of BMX racing.
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_01/shanMOS0902_468x349.jpg
Photo - Shanaze Reade, 19, is the favourite
to win a gold in the Olympics’ first BMX event.
And if she does succeed in winning the inaugural event in Beijing,
she will spare a thought for Bob Field, the mentor whose dying wish
was for her to bring a gold medal back to Cheshire.
When Reade first started turning up at her hometown track,
it was little more than a fun place to be for a livewire youngster
growing up in a one-parent family.
Even when she discovered she had a natural gift for propelling a
bike over jumps and round hairpin bends at breakneck speed, she
never dreamed she would one day have the chance to stand on top
of the podium at the world's biggest sporting festival.
"The first time I went to the track I was just 10," she said last week.
"I hated it because it was raining and I got my new trainers filthy.
But I went back in the summer and absolutely loved it.
"There was a great guy called Bob, with a big Afro. People would travel
from all over the country for his sessions because they were that great.
I just clicked with him, he made it so much fun and he got me properly
hooked on racing.
"He died of cancer last year but he'd made a video diary while he was
dying and it was played at his funeral. On the video, he said, 'Shanaze,
can you please win the Olympics for me?'"
The memory produces a flicker of emotion across her face but do not
expect any tears if she hears the National Anthem ring out in China
skies:
Reade is tough and has had to be. It has taken a strong will and great
dedication to convert her talent into achievement.
Her mother, Joanna, was just 17 when she gave birth and
her Jamaican father, Lincoln Hendrix, left soon afterwards.
Rather than look upon the desertion as a disadvantage, she is grateful
to
her absent father for helping to shape the competitive, determined
streak
which, harnessed with her love for BMX, has made her one of Britain's
most exciting athletes.
"I thank him for going, actually, because maybe things would be
different
if he was around and it had all been handed to me on a plate," she said.
"I think his absence has made me the strong person I am.
I've always been the same. I've always wanted to win."
Athletics first sparked her sporting interest but when BMX came into her
life and the time came to make a choice between the sports, there was
no contest.
"I used to be a sprinter and when I trained, I used to train harder than
all the other girls and beat them all," she said. "I could have gone all
the
way. The only thing that was missing in the end was the passion. As soon
as the passion goes, what's the point?
"I stopped in 2000. I had just won the Europeans in BMX. My athletics
coach wouldn't let me juggle them both and said: 'Pick one or the
other'."
Her maternal grandparents, Mick and Mary Reade, had bought Shanaze
her first bike and equipment and funded her first season on the circuit
but even after sponsors came on board in the wake of her early success
and despite the help of friends, times were often tough.
Her local police station helped her go to her first world junior
championships in the United States but she missed out on the
2003 event in Australia because it was too expensive.
That was also the year the International Olympic Committee announced
that BMX racing, the sport which began in the sun-kissed state of
California in 1970, would make its debut at the Beijing Games.
Reade said: "I was so happy. It gave me a massive focus in life. From
the day I heard, it clicked: 'I want to be Olympic champion'. For every
sport, the Olympics is the biggest event. If you asked anyone on the
street who the BMX world champion is, they wouldn't know that it's me.
If you win the Olympic Games, everyone knows. If I win, hopefully
people will take more note of what BMX racing is about."
With the help of Lottery funding, Reade continued her run of success in
the junior ranks, in which she won an incredible eight European and
three
world championships, and in 2007, her first season as a senior, she
became world champion.
Even Lord Coe, double Olympic gold medallist and London 2012 supremo,
has named Reade as one of Britain's best gold medal prospects in
Beijing,
where she may yet find herself competing in more than one discipline in
Beijing.
Sick of training in the cold and rain of Crewe last winter, she decided
to give track cycling another go, having tried it once and hated it.
The track team told her she would not be fast enough,
but she proved them wrong.
Less than two months later, she found herself at the World
Championships in Majorca, partnering Victoria Pendleton,
the golden girl of British cycling, to the team sprint title, as
well as finishing fifth in the 500m time trial.
There is a feeling that if Reade were to devote more of her time to
track,
she and Pendleton could develop a Coe-Ovett style rivalry and next
weekend, they will begin the track season together at the Copenhagen
World Cup.
If Reade does well there and at the World Championships in Manchester
in March, she could find herself going for more than one medal in
Beijing.
Shanaze being Shanaze, though, her independent spirit may yet place
her in conflict with Olympic team officials. Reade does not intend to
spend any longer than is necessary acclimatising in Beijing.
She said: "I'm only going out four days before the Games. I went to
the test event for four days, slept perfectly, had no jet lag and won.
You don't need fancy stuff to do what you've got to do.
"If I want to go out drinking, or shopping with my friends, I'll do it,
because you don't get your youth back when you're older, you only
get one shot at it.
"When I train with other people, I see them looking so serious.
But you can be successful in sport and still have a life. I'll train
as hard as I can but if I want to do something, you're not stopping
me. You don't own me."
ACC - http://www.genesbmx.com/2008-bmx-olympics.html
Geneb...Wenatchee,Washington-USA
All Things Northwest in BMX!
***** Gene`s BMX *****
http://www.genesbmx.com
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