Victoria Pendleton is the golden girl of British cycling. She was one of Great Britain’s best medal prospects for the Beijing Olympic Games and did win Gold in the womens sprint race.

Victoria’s success has made her one of the most high profile female Olympians in the UK and she is a real prospect for the London Olympic Games in 2012.

Encouraged by her fathers enthusiasm for cycling, Victoria and her twin brother started grass track racing as a hobby aged 9. At 16 and after some good results she was talent spotted by a national track coach although despite his efforts to encourage her to train full-time, she decided to concentrate on her GCSE’s and A-levels. After school Victoria went to Northumbria University to study Sport and Exercise Science, graduating with a 2:1.

Whilst there she continued cycling and inspired by Jason Queally’s Olympic Gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Victoria started training with the GB track cycling squad. She quickly earned her place on the England Potential Programme (2001) and was then selected on to the World Class Performance Programme (WCPP) the following year, despite some scepticism that she was too slight to be a sprinter!

In her first year on the WCPP Victoria won the National Championships in the Sprint and 500m and earned the opportunity to attend an international training academy (U.C.I. World Cycling Centre) in Aigle, Switzerland for two seasons leading up to the Athens Olympics. Despite a disappointing performance at her first Olympic Games, Victoria went on to become World Sprint Champion in 2005 and Commonwealth Sprint Champion in 2006. She also won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games and World Championships in the same year.
In 2007, Victoria made history when she won an unprecedented three World Championship Gold medals, establishing herself as the worlds best female track cyclist. Currently a member of British Cycling’s Olympic Podium Programme, Victoria lives and trains in Manchester where in the 2008 World Championships she won two Gold and one Silver medal. She is now the undisputed favourite to win Olympic Gold in Beijing this summer.