One of the most talked about moments of the Games was the disqualification of defending Paralympic champion, Jody Cundy, in the 1km time trial. We caught up with Jody about the highs and lows of his Paralympic experience at London 2012.
How was the Parade?
Words can’t describe that, to see so many people out on the streets, people as far as the eye can see, just a field of red white and blue, it was just amazing. I’ve never known anything like it, I mean I did the parade after Beijing and Athens and they were well attended and pretty cheery but this was just bonkers, it doesn’t compare to anything else.
Your experience at these Games have been very much highs and lows…
Yeah pretty much some of the highest highs and the lowest lows a mixed bag of anything that could be thrown my way really!
The kilo must have been heart breaking for you, can you tell us about that?
As world champion and world record holder I had the honour of going last.
Is that a difficult position to be in?
It is and it isn’t, I’ve been off earlier and it’s sometimes worse because you then set a time and then your out of control of what everyone else can do after it, it’s almost like when you see what other people can do it gives you confidence because you know you can go faster than them or you know that you have a benchmark time to beat. So you still can’t control what’s going to happen, you still give 100% of effort but you get a bit more confidence going last because you know you are the last one to go and it’s all down to you.
Anyway, I got up on the start gate, the countdown came down and I started, like I do every time in training, on the track, every time I’ve raced before and when I put my foot down the backwheel spun and I came almost crashing out of the gate, and I almost wish I did come crashing out of the gate, I came out the gate and immediately knew something was wrong and called for a restart, which is what you’re entitled to – there are rules in there about mishaps and you’re allowed 2 starts – so I did exactly that, pulled off the track so there was no doubt that that’s what I was calling. Came back round and when the mechanic tried to put the bike into the gate the official wouldn’t let him and then it turned into a discussion between the commisaires and the cycling staff from British Cycling and I got the nod that it wasn’t going to happen and I wasn’t going to get the restart and it was apparently rider error and I didn’t deserve a mishap and that was my kilo over.
We saw how emotional that was…
It wasn’t my proudest moment but it is what it is now and it will go down in history as part of the Paralympics on Day 2.
It showed everyone how much an athlete puts in through 4 years of training and how much it means to athletes. That’s about the only positive I can take from it, is the fact that its highlighted the amount of dedication and hard work we put in. People have always looked at the Paralympics like we turn up and we get medals and it’s all happy and rosy and that’s it. That’s not the reality, the reality is that we have worked really hard to get where we are and medals do really mean a lot to us and to be cruelly denied that was heart breaking.
Do things like that happen regularly?
It had happened in the morning, the British girls in the tandem did exactly the same as I did and they got a restart, so I don’t know what was going on, it’s just one of those things, unfortunately it happened at the wrong time, in my career probably the most important race I’ll ever do and it ruined that. But then I had to go away and I made all my apologies in the press conference, went back to the village and had something to eat and literally tried to put it all behind me to come back the following morning.
It was really hard, because I was coming back to do the 4km Pursuit, which after the Feb World Championships I had decided not to focus on because I knew the Kilo was going to be such a close race. So I had done no training for the Pursuit in the entire run up from Feb to the Games, although a lot of my training for the Kilo involves pursuit like training, I hadn’t actually done anything specific for those 16 laps. So, when I got up on the start line I was just literally using my ability from having done pursuits before and trying to tap into the form I had and just ride a really controlled 16 laps, which I think I managed to do and I did a PB and made a bronze medal final. But I was so close to the silver and gold medal final, less than half a second, which looking back I wish I had known that I was that close to making it, but I don’t know where I would have found anymore time anyway. I did a PB so it was the best performance I could do.
How was getting your bronze medal in front of a home crowd, how did that feel?
The crowd were amazing, really receptive to me, in the morning before I got on the bike I saluted them, just purely from the amount of support I had on texts and twitter from the night before, I knew that everyone was behind me and the way the crowd the night before were chanting ‘Let him race’ I knew that there were 6000 people there who were all on my side. Then in the final I knew I had 8 seconds over my opponent, and in the pursuit if you get a catch the race is over and with 8 seconds I knew had a good chance of being able to catch him and if I went at a pretty decent pace that I might catch him in 8 laps and that was the plan, so I had a chat with my coach, we discussed how I was going to do it and it wasn’t going to be a flat out kilo – I almost wanted to do a flat out kilo just to show everyone what I could do – but we decided that if that all goes wrong after 4 laps the next 12 laps could be very very hard work! So it was a very restrained start and I just tried to pile on the pace as I went round and built a good pace and the pace was pretty sharp because the 1st km was quicker than what won the night before! After 5 and a bit laps I caught my opponent and I felt quite sorry for the Columbian because he was on the wrong end of my come back, but it was a great race to do and I was quite impressed with the speed that I rode.
The Games, the media attention and the way the public have embraced the Paralympics, how different is this for you?
It is on a completely different level of sport, I have never known anything like it. The fact that we had TV’s and cameras pretty much following us around while we were racing. The crowd noise was something else – they said that during Chris Hoy’s race that they recorded 120 decibels in there and from what I heard our support in there was as loud as, if not louder than at the Olympics. To have that kind of noise following you around the track, it’s pretty intimidating but once you kind of get used to it, you absolutely thrive on it. One thing I was sad about once I finished the pursuit was that I knew I was never going to get to race in front of that ever again, even if I get to go to Rio or anywhere else, it’s not a 6000 strong home crowd at a home games – its never going to be the same. I was quite sad about that because they pushed me on to go faster, I mean I can only go as fast as my legs can go, but you just find a little more when they are cheering you.
The team seem really well bonded and integrated, what’s the athletes’ village like?
The village is very colourful anyway, you get to see all the other nations in their bright tracksuits and then you’ve got all the other teams from GB integrating between each other. There is a good spirit in there and you see when people win medals and people you have never spoken to before, if you see them in a GB tracksuit you just chat to them and find out what they have been doing and how they have got on. It’s quite a friendly environment, a great experience and everyone’s supporting each other. Its probably one of the most integrated Paralympics I’ve been to, I don’t know whether its just because the profile of Paralympic sport has got higher so we know a lot more of the athletes, purely because we have seen them on TV, but I know I chatted to a lot more from different sports.
Out of the other athletes, who holds the highlight of the Games for you?
Dave Weir and Jonnie Peacock, I was lucky enough to be in the stadium on the night they won, and that session started off with Hannah Cockroft winning and the huge cheers and noise was amazing. Then you had back-to-back Dave Weir and Jonnie Peacock following him and to watch them win and listen to the 80,000 crowd blow the stadium to bits, it was fantastic to be part of. So they are my two highlights and it’s quite nice because Jonnie is from the same part of the world as I am, we’re about 10 miles apart where we grew up, so it’s quite amazing to think that and think we have both had so much success.
Have these Games changed people’s perception of disability?
Yeah I think so, there is a lot of talk about this now the Games are over, I think that these Paralympics have put Paralympic Sport on the map and in doing so it has also put disability on the map. So people have seen what’s possible with a disability and that you’re not restricted to certain things, I mean yes we are elite sports people and we are doing everything at the very top of our game, but even if you see somebody do something you can go ‘actually I can aspire to do just half of that’. It gives people inspiration and moves the whole Paralympic Movement along and the recognition for disability. And above all, it has kind of shown that yes the Paralympics are the disability equivalent of the Olympics but it’s still about the sport and the race and the elitism of the nations and athletes competing and that’s the one thing that’s come away from the Games – people now look at the Paralympics in a completely different light, maybe highlighted from my outburst but then it helped promote the Paralympics afterwards!
Having the same coverage has just been brilliant and one thing I have noticed is that the Paralympics always used to be about the story and then you’d find out about how they performed and the Olympics was always about the performance of the person then, once they had won their gold medals, you then found out their stories and I think that might change in the future and it will be more about the racing and you’ll hear their stories after they have raced, but yeah that’s the main difference.
What’s next, you must want to claim your title back in Rio?
Yes that seems to be my overriding motivation now, there are a few factors that are involved in that, one, I need to still be up and running in 2016 which is another 4 years down the line which means I’ll be another 4 years older, which continuing the training we do isn’t the easiest process in the world. So, I’ll just play it year by year and see how things go, but that’s the main goal ,but I also have the National Championships in 2 weeks time so that will be fun, maybe a come down after the Paralympics but I think with the publics response to the cycling in the Olympics and Paralympics it should be a well attended and well spectated event, so it will have a completely different feel to it than it has in previous years. Looking forward to kind of getting in there and racing and finishing my season and then find a block of time where I can go away on holiday and recharge the batteries and have a look at what needs to be done over the next 4 years, start mapping it out and planning it.
