From Champion Swimmer to Cyclist -Jody Cundy

Since the Athens Paralympic Games in 2004, a lot has changed within Team GB (Cycling) as athletes from other sports have been brought in to go for medals in Beijing. This fast-tracking of medal prospects has been very successful with medals at World Championship level for both our able bodied and disabled athletes.

One of those success stories has been Jody Cundy who migrated across to cycling from swimming. At a recent training camp in Newport, I asked the rider who races with a state-of-the-art false leg if he feels part of the team now.

Jody replied,"Definitely. I have come to feel part of the cycling team, even though I still have my friends in swimming. After a few years in the sport, I now feel at home on a bike on the track."

Seeing him wearing the rainbow stripes as he trained, I asked does he feel he made the right decision changing to cycling from swimming? Again, the answer was a resounding ‘definitely’.

"At the time," he goes on to explain. "I was a bit dubious about the choices I was about to make. I was good enough to make the Team Sprint team but nothing was proven individually and I was four or five seconds off the World’s best at the time. But then, it took only a short time between my debut and the Worlds to improve and reduce my time and get a World Record. I haven’t looked back since."

The big goal though for all our Paralympic athletes is the Games in Beijing which are now less than six months way. How does he feel about his chances there?

"I am really positive about Beijing and looking forward to racing in events during March and May because everything is ahead of the schedule that I was on last year where I had I moved on from the year before that. With that in mind, I’m looking forward to the prospect of going even faster than I have already on the track in Beijing."

Talking about the events he is planning on doing, Jody explains, "I am targeting the Kilo where I am the World Champion and World Record holder. Then, depending on selections and so on, the Team Sprint as well in which we are the reigning world champions and world record holders."

He admits that considering it’s Paralympics year, he is surprised how quiet it is on the competition front preceding the Games. He’ll have a demonstration event at the UCI Track World Championships in March, the Paralympic World Cup in May – which will be the biggest of the hitouts before Beijing – and also a Grand Prix in Newport, "Three kilos and then Beijing – so not a lot of time or events to experiment in" he adds.

Asked does he feel he needs lots of racing before something as big as Beijing? "I do" he replies. "I have been brought up on competition, especially when I was younger and swimming. I’d be racing pretty much every weekend or every other weekend which gave me time to experiment and try different things."

It isn’t just about his physical training to go faster or tweaking improvements to the bike which the team are working on. Jody has also been working on getting a hi-tech ‘leg’ to replace the NHS one he started out with when he made the move to riding a bike:

"This year especially, I have been working on getting a better one made. I started out with my original NHS leg but it was coming off when I was doing sprints so I then had a prototype which went straight down into a cleat at the bottom and that worked really and was successful."

"Now this one here (the one he was using at Newport), is the modified version of that. I broke it in testing but you can really feel the difference between this one and the last one. Like when you accelerate, there is less weight to get moving, probably half the weight of the old one, and that was an improvement on the one before."

Finally, will his time in previous Paralympic Games help him in six months time?

"Yes, of course. The Paralympics is a different ball-game and hopefully I can take the experience with me of being to three Games already to Beijing.

"Although I have been to the Paralympics in different sports, at the end of the day, competition is competition at this level and you learn to deal with your event and put everything else in the background."