Following up on their
Bronze medal in the "Kilo", RBCC's own Janelle Lindsay
and vision impaired co-pilot Lindy Hou have won the
Gold medal in
the Woman's Tandem
Sprint at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens
(20/9/04). Silver went to Great Britain and Bronze
to USA.
CONGRATULATIONS
LINDY AND JANELLE!!!
Everything has gone
quiet since Janelle's last email of 7 Sept. She is probably in serious party
mood While we wait for her to contact us and in the absence of any
photos, left is my impression of how she might look with her new gold medal.
Check out Janelle and
the other paralympic cyclists on
www.oztandem.com
Here's the girls getting their gold medal. You may have to
wait a little if you have not got broadband.
Yes I know it's small but it's the only way I could get 1 minute of
video down to 500k.
Hit the (tiny) play button on the top to play clip.
Email 24 Sept 2004
"THE ATHENS ADVENTURE
Hello there
Here is the quick run down and apologies for the delay, but I have been
seriously busy over here in Athens. Lets start with the kilo shall we....
We raced on 98.6 inch gear, as advised by "big gear bucko" (what
ever happened to his twin brother "wait for bucko"?), and smashed our
personal best by about 3 seconds. Let me tell you this Athens track is super
fast.
The wood is very hard and has nice tight corners. When you are flying
the the corners we are dropping the inside shoulder right down and laying
the bike sideways. It is really fun!!!! Anyhow, we managed to nail the start
- rather than buggering it up which we have been known to do, so while
it wasn't super fast at least we got over that hurdle.
The next yummy laps were normal kilo laps. Just dandy. Then comes lap 4. BOOOOOM!
There they go, no more legs. Lucky the thing was already moving otherwise I
would need a propeller to get the tandem home. Lucky I have Lindy. Lindy is
riding the best she has ever ridden with me. It is quite exciting. Anyhow we
are over and get off the bike, can't stand up, legs are really hurting and
then I am expected to walk??? Are these people stupid???? And where was Tony
Horneman with my spew bucket???
Former tandem pilot kilo world record holder Tanya Modra (yes - she is
the sister of super stoker Keiran Modra) was in the crowd to see her
world record get beaten by gold, silver and bronze medallists! Like I said
fast track. We were happy with a bronze and it was a nice feeling to get
to stand on the podium. We were the first medal for Australia too which was
a nice touch!
Even faster for us the next day, my happy little event the sprint. We
were last off for the 200mfly qualifier. The USA were before us, went out
and broke the world record. We went out and broke it by more. Tee hee
hee. 11.675 seconds. Just a tad under 62km hr.
The third day saw us in the semis v the other Aussie team. After some
team tactics we had a soft path into the gold medal round. In the other semi
was the USA v Great Britain. These girls dragged raced big time and tried
to kill each other. All the better for us as they were tired. In the final
we knew the Brits desperately wanted the front (as is very common in
women's tandem sprint, as the bikes are longer to come around compared to
single bike, so drag races are common but not tactical). So we let them have
the front, foxed a bit to get the speed up and make them whack their legs
a couple of times... Then we whacked them big time and held the front.
They would take any height to run at us and at that pace I knew they didn't
have time to come around us, so one-nil to us. Then in the second sprint we
did the same thing and they still wouldn't take height, even after I tried
to nudge them up the track! Oh well.... If drag racing is all you know
what are you gonna do when someone uses tactics eh?? So gold gold gold for
Australia! This I will never forget, seeing the Aussie flag and hearing
the anthem. There were a few tears, but mostly a big grin!
As for tears I cried more when Dave Short (from St George club) and Keiran Modra
(from South Aust) won the men's tandem sprint after a huge fall and more
drama than days of our lives. And then the next day when Kial Stewart and
Anthony Biddle (both from act) won the Men's tandem kilo I was a
weeping mess for about 30minutes. I can compete at these things, but maybe
I shouldn't be allowed to watch - I get too emotional.
Toiresa
and Lindy competed in the pursuit and beat the favoured West Aust team in
qualifier and then moved into the gold medal round with a world record ride.
However they were beaten by the USA team in a faster world record time, so
Lindy now has gold, silver and bronze! Very nice.
Anyhow the road events are coming up so the girls and the rest of the
Aussies will be back in action tomorrow. I am looking forward to cheering
them on from the sidelines, getting drinks and spew buckets etc. Am enjoying
this experience, totally enjoyed the racing and the track and
thanks for all the very nice txt and e-mails from some very nice people out
there.
One gold, One bronze - me and lindy are very happy.
love Janelle, the wonderful Swedish Viking goddess
Well
don't do too much watching. You better keep some form because if you
think that we let Paralympic Gold medalist ride C grade at Heffron, You're
Dreamin !!!!! - Bucko (editor)
Email 2 Sept 2004
Hey there
Here is the cyclist version of my update from
Avezzano, training camp extraordinaire for Athens. First the hotel.....
apart from the oil covered vegetables, the cold mushy vegetables, the bed
spring that sounds like a bulldozer running over a Mack truck, the water
that is hot (but only sometimes) the taps that run (again only sometimes)
and the taps that comes off in your hand, and the towel racks that come off
in your hand and the same key that opens every room in the hotel and the
insistence of the hotel owner not to give us hot coffee....well its great!
Training has been a scenic
adventure. We are in a valley and you can ride for ages on the flats thru
small Italian villages, blokes whistling when they realise that the bike
rider is actually a senorita! So I like the flats and the whistles! (tee hee
hee). You can also go over the mountiains same again thru small villages
etc. not so keen on the mountain stuff... We have the paralympic equvalent
of the 'wait for bucko' hubbard group. I am in this group with a few other
sprinter types!
The velodrome here is a
333m cement track just like Tempe, so slightly smaller gears than at Athens,
but was very happy during the week did standing 250m on my single bike on
52x14. That rolls out to a healthy Bucko and Whitey style 100.3 woohoo!!!!
The Australian institute of
sport have sent over a couple of sports science types to use the ice vests.
These are to combat the heat and stop ones core temp from going too high and
therefore reducing effeciency. After a track session to put one of these on
feels great - instant cool! though you look like the michelin man.
So that's all from here,
kilo training and sprint training with the boys from the A.C.T. is all good.
Road riding always ends with good coffee, and if you are really lucky a
pastry, gelato are biscuit. Till next time
cycling types....
love Janelle, (looks like Elle, goes like Jan)
Email 4 Sept 2004 (Janelle foolishly gives me
permission to publish her emails)
G'day Wait for Bucko and
Tony
No worries publish away. Raining here in Italia after a great
morning. Was doing a recovery ride and me and Peter Brooks (fellow NSW
rider) found the ruins of an old town. When I say ruins, I mean the
foundations of a place that must be nearly 1000 years old! Columns and
marble rods and big blocks of stone with latin just visible inscribed in
them! Was great. Imagine a Friday morning coffee ride where you get to
jump off the bike and see that!
Also saw a castle just up a hill from these ruins, but in bike shoes and
cleats...well another day where we take our flip flops perhaps! only
about 25 minutes ride from the hotel.
While the food hasn't been spectacular there is nothing better than the
ice cream gelato that I have tried. Not that I am eating too much, gotta
keep my fantastic sprinter figure! did standing starts again yesterday on
the single bike (lindy was pursuit training with Toireasa - YUKKY pursuit
glad it's not me) anyhow my starts were on the 52x14 again. Me big
sprinter woman!
Thanks for the text Tony. Good to get your e-mail too bucko. Keep any
Robbie info coming in as it is nice to hear how the fellow club mates are
going.
love Janelle, the wonderful swedish viking goddess
Email 7 Sept 2004 7
hey there y'all
firstly john, could you upload this onto
oztandem.com as we have
tried and no luck from this end. that would be great if you could...now
onto the news.
how are all the cycling types, friday night racers types, family types
and friendly types, sehr gut i hope. another day in paradisio here. today
is rest day. some have caught the train to the coast, others gone ten pin
bowling, and yet others for a feed of chinese! as for me, i am shopping
and eating gelato, enjoying the summer breeze. might partake in chinese a
bit later.
had a little spin on the track today using the double toe straps.
images of a shane kelly kilo of sydney are haunting me, so we are trying
to minimise any mechanicals. i like them a lot by the way! yesterday was a
bring a spew bucket to the track day. was only myself and another sprinter
type training at the velodrome. had a huge one with standing starts
(never enough standing starts!) and flying 750ms no recovery. i think my
lungs were ready to jump out of my chest. but after each effort the coach
asks how was that, i reply thru gasps....didn't hurt - where's the spew
bucket. so training is hard but great.
lindy and toireasa and the majority of the team went out of the town a
bit and did time trial training with the disk wheels and all. everyone
seemed to get something out of it, whether a posistional thing, or just
good to have a hit out. the girls did a bit of drafting behind a tractor
which i am sure is illegal practice in the competition, but worked ok for
training. lindy says she feels fine today, so we think she has got more go
in her yet! it was windy at the track, so it was molto windy out where
they were. rather be at the track with a mechanic looking after me than
out sloggin out a tt. note how i just slipped into the italian language
then. was very impressive.
i have learned some italian. -no copishci italiano- it means i don't
understand italian. neither do italians. after agreeing that you don't
speak italian, they will establish that you speak english, are from
australia and then proceed to continue a full conversation in italian.
this circle continues ad nausium.
we all went out for pizza the other nite. no beer or vino. what a
shame. note the language usage again. man am i good at this cultural
integration stuff. food has improved slightly because the cold mushy
broccoli is now just cold. the coffee from the shops is good and at the
hotel depending on which staff member you may well get a hot coffee. maria
who owns the hotel cannot believe how much milk we all drink. i cant
believe how they drink cold coffee. nor can i understand how they can
smoke in the laundry when washing and ironing our linen, smokein
the kitchen when preparing our food, smoke early in the morning, mid
morning, pre lunch, lunch, post lunch etc etc smokes. even in this
internet cafe there are ash trays here for our convenience. i guess you
just are used to it or not.
last night we had a presintation on tapering from one of the australian
institue of sport gurus. was very informative. good to see how someone can
spend their time working out all this stuff. the guru also gave a
presintation about miguel indurain 1 hour record attempt from a pure
science point of view ie. by science could they work out in the lab
whether mig would break it if he attempted it (which he did 53 something
kms in 1 hour i believe could be wrong there. was heaps.)
so a lot of different things happening. the program for athens looks
like the tandem women kilo is the first track event on the first day of
competition (about 10:00 athens times subject to change at any moment), so
am going to pracitve with these toe straps to make us go even faster.
till next time, take care you'll and enjoy your hot veges.
love Jan-Elle (time trials like Jan Ullrich, looks like Elle MacPherson)
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