Victoria Pendleton: Cycling's Golden Girl

[GrumpyGregry]

She was showing nothing more than normal human emotions. Any sports person who opened up and let you inside their head would come across pretty much the same.

I doubt that. Elite sports people are as uniform a group as any other section of society. So not very uniform at all then. Some of them believe they are the mutts nuts and aren't riddled with doubts and fears.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Ever4

I doubt that. Elite sports people are as uniform a group as any other section of society. So not very uniform at all then. Some of them believe they are the mutts nuts and aren't riddled with doubts and fears.

Ever read The Secret Footballer in the Saturday edition of the Guardian? He's covered that subject on a few occasions and self doubt, depression and extreme mood swings are very common in a profession where one relatively poor spell can push you back to a level where nobody wants to know you. Much of the apparent self-belief displayed by top sportsmen and women is masking a mind full of inner turmoil because of the very public pressure they are under, and their place in the team is constantly under threat from someone younger who strives to be fitter, faster or more skilled. And before anyone mentions it, shedloads of money every week is not a known medical cure.

 

[Fnaar]

I doubt that. Elite sports people are as uniform a group as any other section of society. So not very uniform at all then. Some of them believe they are the mutts nuts and aren't riddled with doubts and fears.

Has she done photos in uniforms?

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Sent mobile phone stylee

 

[guitarpete247]

Excellent programme. She came across as a very pleasant but fragile champion. Her bikes for Halfrauds have gone for the different market entirely to CB's. The GF fancies one as she likes the baskets on the front.

Then watched the profile on Wiggo last night and saw the same shrink but this time in tracksuit showing that he's one of the team. On that point, are all the main coaching staff for the GB cycle team now working for Sky?

 

[Moodyman]

I don't know, I think her body is a work of art and I'm glad that we have pictures of a healthy, athletic body that isn't made of silicone or twigs.

If I had her body I would just never wear clothes. My Bella Emberg-esque figure doesn't quite have the same effect...

 

[Doseone]

She was showing nothing more than normal human emotions. Any sports person who opened up and let you inside their head would come across pretty much the same.

SJ are you suggesting that what VP was showing is just the same normal human emotions that you or I would show? Or are you saying that they are normal emotions for a sports person? Aren't the two different and wouldn't it depend to some extent on the level of sports person?

I could agree that maybe a normal sports person (definition of which could be quite broad and open to interpretation) may have normal human emotions, but I don't put VP in the category of a normal sports person. She is/ was the at the absolute pinnacle of her sport and has dominated in a way that few have in other sports, maybe Schumacher, Woods and to an extent I think that means you have to be wired a bit differently to the average person.

I'm also willing to accept that most of these documentaries have an agenda. There are probably hundreds of hours on the cutting room floor which if we were to see them all would make VP look completely normal. However, we are given a one hour peep hole and it would be very easy to put together something that shows a pushy dad with unfulfilled ambitions of his own living vicariously through his daughter, invisible mother, and emotionally fragile athlete. We only see what we the documentary makers want us to see and I think they probably always have to have an angle.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

SJ are you suggesting that what VP was showing is just the same normal human emotions that you or I would show? Or are you saying that they are normal emotions for a sports person? Aren't the two different and wouldn't it depend to some extent on the level of sports person?

I could agree that maybe a normal sports person (definition of which could be quite broad and open to interpretation) may have normal human emotions, but I don't put VP in the category of a normal sports person. She is/ was the at the absolute pinnacle of her sport and has dominated in a way that few have in other sports, maybe Schumacher, Woods and to an extent I think that means you have to be wired a bit differently to the average person.

I'm also willing to accept that most of these documentaries have an agenda. There are probably hundreds of hours on the cutting room floor which if we were to see them all would make VP look completely normal. However, we are given a one hour peep hole and it would be very easy to put together something that shows a pushy dad with unfulfilled ambitions of his own living vicariously through his daughter, invisible mother, and emotionally fragile athlete. We only see what we the documentary makers want us to see and I think they probably always have to have an angle.

They all seem to be a bit messed up, watched the documentary about Bradley Wiggins on ITV4 the other day and he seems to be a bit the same.

 

[ColinJ]

We only see what we the documentary makers want us to see and I think they probably always have to have an angle.

I wonder how much say VP had in the documentary. I felt a couple of times in the programme that she was trying to send a message back to her father.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

I wonder how much say VP had in the documentary. I felt a couple of times in the programme that she was trying to send a message back to her father.

What like let me have a life and you go and find your own.

 

[Smokin Joe]

SJ are you suggesting that what VP was showing is just the same normal human emotions that you or I would show? Or are you saying that they are normal emotions for a sports person? Aren't the two different and wouldn't it depend to some extent on the level of sports person?

Being talented at something doesn't make anyone exempt from the normal mayhem that goes on inside everyone's head.

 

[ColinJ]

What like let me have a life and you go and find your own.

Yes!

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Being talented at something doesn't make anyone exempt from the normal mayhem that goes on inside everyone's head.

Exactly. Make a documentary about most of us and we'd come across as flawed, perhaps even broken, people.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

Yes!

Did you see his reaction when he was looking at VP's jersey on the wall, I thought he was going to start crying and stamping his feet shouting it's not fair it should have been me

 

[ComedyPilot]

I think Shane Sutton acknowledged that the secrecy had been part of the problem.

It was clear, though, that when she joined the team it simply wasn't set up to accommodate a woman, and that, worse still, the attitude from Shane Sutton across to the psychologist is still concentrated purely on the personal (which was there in spades) but neglects the obvious, which is that you have to have some kind of plan, and the conversational skills to see it through.

It made me wonder what would have happened if (say) Chris Hoy had fallen head over heels in love with Dave Brailsford. I don't think the team would have been able to cope.

I don't think Dave Brailsford's ribs would stand up to having Chris Hoy's legs locked round them in an embrace...

 

[middleagecyclist]

I don't see why she can't get regular work as a TV presenter

I think she would be a great TV presenter if that is the way she wanted to go. A real personality. Just seen her advertising hair products on TV though. Now't wrong with that but a real shame if she just becomes a celeb endorsing products and nothing more.