Anna Meares on rivalry, Armstrong and her comeback from injury

ANNA Meares talks about her rivalry with Victoria Pendleton, the  Armstrong scandal and fighting back from a broken neck. 

Anna Meares

CYCLIST Anna Meares is one of Australia's greatest Olympians.

The Blackwater-born, coalminer's daughter won time trial gold in Athens and finished second to British pin-up girl Victoria Pendleton at the Beijing Games in 2008 just seven months after an horrific crash at a meeting in Los Angeles left her with a broken neck.

Last year, in one of the great moments of the London Games, she mowed down Pendleton in the final of the sprint for another cherished gold.

The event had been trumpeted as the most keenly anticipated match race of the Games.

In her new book, The Anna Meares Story, Meares talks candidly about her colourful journey and today she expands on the pressures of that clash, her thoughts on Lance Armstrong and the accident that almost finished her career.

Robert Craddock: When you broke your neck in 2008 and returned home from the US in a wheelchair you must have feared for your future?

Anna Meares: It was an extremely painful trip home. Very uncomfortable. Just like having a constant migraine. Any movement made it sharper.

That is a good way to describe it.

Things you don't think of like potholes on the road or turbulence in a plane. Things that are going to put you off balance or rattle you a little bit were really uncomfortable.

Were you fearful of never riding again?

I was probably a bit stubborn and I was maybe a bit naive in that I did not want to let it sink in to the point where I would really have to put on the brakes. I was scared and I had a lot of doubt around it.

Does it frustrate you Lance Armstrong's drug use has cast a pall over the sport?

Yes and no.

It is frustrating and it does have a flow-on effect because men's road racing is the pinnacle of cycling internationally.

That is where the history and tradition and the money and media is.

Cycling does deserve its tarred name. Too many times have its athletes broken the trust with their followers.

The thing I get frustrated about with the Lance Armstrong thing is that we are talking about issues that happened 10 or 12 years ago.

With the blood passports coming in and protocols around the drug testing things are improving.

I say to people: ''Don't you think it is great we are catching the cheats?''

Sally Pearson said she has fewer sponsors after London despite winning a gold medal. How have you fared?

I had three contracts on the table after London but I lost all three when the Armstrong affair broke.

In saying that all of my current sponsors re-signed me and I did pick up two new sponsors. I am well placed. I am happy and thankful where I am at.

It could have been better. It is always tough in Australia when there are so many sports competing for publicity and sponsorship. I have learnt through my sport that you don't get rewarded off one win. You have to be extremely consistent for a long period of time.

Your rivalry with Victoria Pendleton was a focus of the London Olympics. How did you handle it?

It was very difficult. I almost feared the media going to London.

I have never experienced being the focal point of major competition like the Olympic Games. To be one half of a big rivalry that brought on so much attention, I didn't know how to handle that.

It was not always attention that was always kind. Off the bike, I'm a person who doesn't like being cast as a villain.

On the bike, throw anything at me. I know I can handle the intimidation.

I was scared about the off-field stuff but in hindsight it was probably the best thing that could happen to me.

So what did you do?

I didn't want to answer any phone calls, reply to any emails or do any interviews because I knew it would be all about the rivalry and I didn't like that.

What about when you first saw her in London. Was it dramatic?

We never spoke. We actually crossed paths on many, many occasions. It was funny how many times it happened - so many times when we were walking through the food court, which was enormous.

Almost on a daily basis we found ourselves walking to the same counter. There was no real words exchanged until competition finished.

Were those moments awkward or good fun?

They were really awkward. I just didn't know whether I should say hello. I didn't know what was said in stories was true or misquoted. There was a lot of emotion on my part because some of the stuff wasn't nice and I was getting a bit pissed off. Sometimes you don't know what to say or how to say it.

Did you get to talk to her at all after you took gold in the sprint and she won silver?

Underneath the track waiting for our medal ceremony we got the chance to talk, which was really great but not since then, and I would not expect it either. She was extremely busy after London, as was I.

You very cleverly used a male rider Alex Bird to replicate Pendleton at training. Did that help you?

Yes. The idea was to desensitise me to Victoria and our rivalry and our history and enable me to become as prepared as possible for racing her.

When we went into the final I asked Gary to refer to Victoria as Alex. I had raced Alex at training for the past 18 months and by trying to bring some normality into an environment which was hugely abnormal it helped.

What have you done with all your Olympic memorabilia?

My Olympic gear is in bags. I am kind of waiting until I retire before I work out what to do with it because I don't want my house to become a museum to me. My husband has to live in it as well.

The Anna Meares Story is published by New Holland, $32.95.