Silver for Lizzie, the girl who started her training aged four: Cyclist secures Britain's first medal of the games

By DAMIEN GAYLE

First medal of the Games: Lizzie Armitstead with her Silver medal following the Women's Road Race along the Mall

Britain’s first medal winner was always supposed to be a cyclist – just not this one.
After Mark Cavendish’s shock defeat on Saturday, it became Lizzie Armitstead who answered the nation’s Olympic prayers instead.
The 23-year-old road cyclist won silver after a magnificent sprint finish in the pouring rain.
She was just beaten to the gold by the Netherlands’ Marianne Vos as they crossed the line on The Mall yesterday.
Afterwards, a beaming Miss Armitstead said she had ‘definitely won the silver’ rather than lost the gold.

Miss Armitstead, left, exhausted, after finishing in the rain yesterday and right, aged four, on her first bike

‘I am pretty chuffed,’ she said. ‘I feel incredible, really, really happy. Hopefully I have got the GB ball rolling now.’
The cycling star was given her first bike for Christmas at the age of four, and as a child she was ‘into everything’.
By the time she was eight, she was competing in triathlon races, which include cycling, running and swimming.
After winning the girls’ race, she moved on to the boys’ race the following year and came first – reducing at least one embarrassed rival to tears.

Lizzie Armitstead tweeted thanks to fans: 'Thank you to the thousands of people cheering who literally got me to the finish line, I'm incredibly proud of GB!'

But her achievement yesterday is all the more impressive given that she became serious about cycling only eight years ago, when she was talent-spotted while at Prince Henry’s Grammar School in Otley, West Yorkshire.
She said: ‘I was the girl on every single school team, even the blooming football team. I was put in goal and I lost the big tournaments letting goals in.
‘I was never fantastic at anything until cycling came along. It was the sport that found me.’

Fight to the finish: Marianne Vos of The Netherlands, celebrates as beats Lizzie Armitstead over the the finish line to win the gold medal in the Women's Road Cycling race today

A staunch vegetarian, she said she stopped eating meat 13 years ago because ‘I could never get my head around eating a corpse’.
She added that she would have done it sooner but ‘my parents used to force me to eat everything on my plate until I was about ten.'
She was raised by Carol, 53, a teacher and John, an accountant, and has two older siblings, Nick, 27, and Kate, 30.
After three weeks away from her family, she admitted she could not wait to see them, saying: ‘We have spoken on the phone.

Tussle: Armitstead and Vos were part of a breakaway pack of three, also including Russia's Olga Zabelinskaya, who fought through the driving rain down the Mall in central London

They are loving it – they have been offered champagne dinners and all sorts. They are having a right time.’
The brunette is dating fellow cyclist Adam Blythe, but that did not stop the late Sir Jimmy Saville proposing to her when they met a year before his death. She said previously: ‘We were at the Dave Rayner dinner, an annual charity event, when he popped the question. I’m sorry to say I turned him down.'

Marianne Vos celebrates as she crosses the line on the mall, ahead of Lizzie Armitstead

Medal winners: Marianne Vos, left, of The Netherlands, center, poses for photographs with Elizabeth Armitstead, of Great Britain, and Olga Zabelinskaya, right, of Russia





source: dailymail