Kiwi Olympians: Susy Pryde, cycling

By CHRIS RATTUE

Three days after hurtling her mountainbike around the 7km Fairfield City farm course, 32km away from the main Olympic venue, Susy Pryde will hop on another bike and tackle the gruelling road race.

The days in between will be crucial not only to Pryde, but her fellow road racers Jacinta Coleman and Roz Reekie-May.

Because while the mountainbike event is essentially an individual effort, the road race requires layers of complicated team tactics aimed at getting at least one rider into the hunt.

So what will she do in between?

"I'll have two full days of recovery and refocusing," the 26-year-old Pryde said.

"It's really crucial, what happens immediately after the mountainbike race.

"In the four and five hours afterwards it will be warm down, stretching, food and just general relaxation and a good night's sleep.

"The following day I'll definitely have to have a ride to get the lactic acid out, a massage, food and lying around in bed between those important things.

"Usually after an event I find my body goes into complete shutdown mode.

"An Olympic event is months, years, of work and preparation.

"But I won't go into shutdown mode because I've mentally prepared myself for this.

"And having two days might be quite good - I won't have lost my competitive juices."

As far as Pryde knows, she will be the only competitor doing both events. A Norwegian cyclist who was preparing for both has pulled out "after riding herself into the ground."

Pryde does not have a priority between the two events but her buildup to each has been completely different.

Training on the mountainbike has been limited mainly to racing - doing quality technical work rather than having any time to "muck around."

She knows little about the women opposing her, whereas she knows almost all the road racers extremely well from her life as a professional racer based in the United States.

And while her own preparation and form will determine what she does in the mountainbike event, the progress of her team-mates will play a large part in what she does in the road event.

Pryde won the silver medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur and was 31st in the Atlanta Olympics.

She should be our top prospect on the road, but in the complicated world of road racing, who knows?

Pryde said that the New Zealand sporting public, who were not brought up on cycling, did not quite understand the team element of road racing.

You get the feeling she believes a medal should be struck for a team, rather than individuals.

The three riders will be in radio contact, and linked to someone on the sidelines, although not necessarily team coach Gary Bell, who Pryde said was not as aware of the women racers as the men.

"I don't think we will start with the idea of promoting one particular rider. It's important to keep our options open," she said.

"The scenario could be, I go away in an early break and the break gets caught.

"I could have given 100 per cent trying to make the break work.

"Then another break goes and perhaps Jacinta is in that break.

"There are hundreds of different scenarios and you can't just bank on one person.

"That's why the team effort is so important.

"We've raced against each other because we're all on different teams but we all get along, we're pretty easy going and not selfish in any way."

Pryde has already had to race her own mini Olympics.

Because she is New Zealand's best rider, she ended up responsible for getting enough World Cup race points to get New Zealand into the world's top 16, and so get three riders to the Olympics.

And, as she explained, it is vital to go to Sydney as part of a team.

Had she failed, New Zealand would have had to have finished ahead of other non-qualifiers such as Samoa at the Oceania championships just to get one Olympic rider.

While Pryde had to accumulate almost all of New Zealand's points, the top nations such as Australia, Germany, Lithuania and France could relax because they had a fleet of top-notch riders to get the points.

With Sports Foundation backing, Pryde raced from Switzerland to the United States in races, searching for points, although the demands of her professional team meant that in one of those races her focus had to be doing some donkey work for her team-mate, Australian World Cup champion Anna Wilson.

"It was my sole focus during that time; it really weighed on my mind."

Going into the last qualifying race, the world championships in Italy, New Zealand were 15th, just ahead of San Marino, who scored well.

But New Zealand held on to 16th position through Pryde's efforts.

"I was exhausted. I felt so relieved.

"It was so important we had a full team, especially with the Olympics so close to home."

They are the sorts of battles Pryde has become used to since she took a year off between leaving school and going to university, and turned up in the United States with a bike in 1992.

She now rides for the No 1-ranked squad, Saturn, which affords her certain comforts. But it has not always been that way.

Pryde arrived in San Francisco with barely $2500, money she had saved for university by doing school holiday odd jobs such as pumpkin picking and labouring.

She headed straight to Colorado, where she had a friend, and began turning up to races, joining composite teams, and living off prizemoney and with the help of friends.

She had one lucky break. Pryde ended up in a flash Colorado flat full of characters such as a student who was in town for the frisbee world championships.

The landlord had mistakenly advertised the flat for $750 rather than $7500 a month, so Pryde, although she had no possessions, lived in semi-style for just $100 a month.

By the end of the year she was down to her last $20, but arrived at a race in a rent-a-wreck and won - claiming $1000. But it was time to head home.

But Pryde had obviously impressed and two weeks before she was due to begin university, she was offered a place with a leading sponsored team in America.

She deliberated for all of a few seconds.

"It was the opportunity of a lifetime," said Pryde, who was brought up on a sheep farm at Miranda, near Thames, where her first love was running.

While the women do not earn anything like what the top men racers do - "they're mega-millionaires, filthy amounts of money" - she now leads the more comfortable life of a racer in the best team.

And the years of hard slog have not only given New Zealand the full complement of three riders at these Olympics, but also - in Pryde - a racer who will know all the ins and outs as she battles the likes of French legend Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli in Sydney.