Cycling
Shaw shines against top talent

SOLIHULL Cycling Club’s Lucy Shaw took to the boards of the National Velodrome in Manchester at the weekend to compete alongside Olympic medallists from London 2012 in the Revolution race meeting.

The line-up included gold medal pursuit team GB member Ed Clancy together with Olympic road race gold and silver medallists Marianne Vos and Lizzie Armistead.

Despite all of the stars on show it was Shaw who won the opening sprint in the DHL Future Stars Points Race. The victory was the latest landmark in an incredible year of progress for Shaw which has seen her selected for the Team GB Talent Team, just one rung away from the Olympic Development Programme.

It is a dream she has held since her dad took her at the age of six to the outdoor track at Halesowen, now almost ten years on the dream is realised.

“Being selected for talent team was so important to me, the selection had been in the back of my mind since the start of the season, all I wanted to do was impress the national talent coaches at each event,” she said.

“I don’t think that my dad thought that taking me along to that one Friday night would ever lead to the amount of cycling and racing I do now.”

The 16-year-old recognises that she is fortunate enough to have both mum and dad as coaches in Solihull CC - and in 12-year-old Matt, a racing brother too.

“I love to watch him race and train with him, apart from when he beats me of course,” she added.

“Our house before a big weekend away racing is mad. Bikes, spare wheels and race bags everywhere. It is so stressful sometimes I wonder how we actually make it too the race.”

Shaw is just part of a development programme at Solihull CC which has seen its youth riders grow from the four back in 2004 when Shaw began riding, to over 100 riders now.

For many of them she is a great role model, but for herself she looks to Olympic Omnium Champion Laura Trott as her inspiration.

“I hope to achieve the same she has - Olympic Champion,” she said. And after bursting through to take the sprint in the velodrome on Saturday, who is to say that dream will not become a reality.

Regional sport »