My journey to winning Olympic Gold Part 3/3

Race day….

Well, in the morning, it actually just felt like a normal race day. I did my twenty minutes on the turbo trainer…we went for lunch…and then I started packing my bag to ride over to the velodrome and that was when I started getting nervous…. Stomach rumbling….a few trips to the toilet…

When I got there and walked out into the Velodrome, I couldn’t believe what I saw – I’d never seen so many people in a velodrome before and the noise was unbelievable, it was like the noise of a fighter jet taking off.

That’s when it hit me again – this was the biggest race that I could ever race.

I walked up to the start gate and I did my normal procedures, exactly like how I described to you that I did on my bed and in every training session.?

I looked down at the countdown and I could feel my legs shaking when I was in the gate, but I was completely focused.

I waited for the start.... 5 seconds to go

Breath in at 3, out on 2, Big deep breath on 1..... 0 and we were off.

I went out of the gate did my lap 17.5 it wasn’t my best and i can only blame the nerves on it!

In the second round, my nerves had completely gone – I’m sure that was because I knew what to expect by then and finally I was starting to enjoy it. I enjoyed it so much, that I did a 17.2 personal best and as a team we set an Olympic Record. Things were definitely improving.

I knew I just had to do the same again in the final and we would win. That;s what I kept telling myself....just the same again as before.

Next up… the Final.

I was strangely very calm and focused.

I was in the gate 10sec to go... 5,4,3,2,1 and then we were off. I started well and I improved my time. It was all going to plan. I pulled up the track and saw jason going as fast as I've never seen him before chris somehow managed to stay on jasons pace and I saw Chris cross the line. I looked up at the scoreboard and I saw us – Great Britain and next to that it said ‘Gold medal’. Not only that, we’d set a new world record!

Honestly, it was like being in a dream – or rather it was a dream come true. It was a total blur with people screaming, and flags waving, and the next thing I knew, I was there standing on the podium, at the age of 19, with Princess Anne putting the gold medal around my neck. The Union Jack flag was flying and the whole velodrome was singing the national anthem. That’s a moment I will never forget.

If you ever wonder what you do after you’ve won an Olympic medal, then let me tell you. London was buzzing at the time and I’ll admit that I went out every night for two weeks straight. As Chris had advised me, there were a lot of celebrities hanging around the village and I got to meet Arnie – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean Claude van Damme, Jason Statham and many others.

I’ll also admit that everyday I was terribly hungover and recovered just in time to have my 5pm big mac in the food hall. Big macs are great because after one, you feel good enough to start on the free drinks and go to the many parties again. It was such a great time… but the glamour was soon gone…

London 2012 was over.?

Two weeks after London, I was straight back into training.

I can honestly say that it was the biggest mistake I’ve made. I had just won the biggest possible race you could win and instead of taking some time off, I was back in there.

The next two years were a real struggle as I found it difficult to find the motivation that I used to have.?

The other guys who hadn’t got to the London games were all very motivated and training hard because they wanted it – I was training, but I wasn’t training seriously. I wasn’t focused – I was eating takeaways and still going out. After all the glory of London, I was a disgrace to myself.

My luck wasn’t good during that post games period as well – about two months after the games, I went to see my parents in Germany, and whilst I was there, mine and Liam’s house was robbed – they took my playstation, my bike and lots of other little things that meant a lot to me. They also stole Liams car...

Then Liam decided to move in with his girlfriend and I had to look for somewhere new to stay – guess where I ended up? Yes, back in the Academy flats!

It doesn’t stop there, as I added a back injury to the list of bad luck in 2013.

And finally, we knew it was coming, but Chris retired at the same point. From then on we were trying different people to fill that Man 3 position. It was all change.

In 2014, at the World Championships in Columbia, and at the Commonwealth Games in Scotland I had some successes personally, posting a new personal best at the world champs and as a team we came 2nd at the Commonwealth games.

I was still eyeing up going for the individual disciplines but talking with the coaches, we agreed that to be able to win another gold medal in Rio in the team sprint, I needed to focus on my Man 1 position and go for the 17.0 time that no-one had ever done before.

So we were into 2015, and over two years on from London, I was still lacking motivation. I found it hard to put in the work in training because we still hadn’t found a Man 3 who could follow the pace and I suppose I thought to myself ‘why get faster, if they can’t even stay on’.

Luckily, I still believed in the coaches because they promised me they would have our new Man 3 ready and on pace by Rio. All I had to concentrate on was my standing lap.

Then, one morning, something happened….We were at a gym training camp and I was doing a squat session – I went to do a squat with my usual weights and as I lifted them, it felt pretty heavy.. I didn’t think anything more about it, so I went ahead and I did my reps. I stopped and when I went to the weights and recounted them, I realised that I had actually lifted 25kg more than I was supposed to.

This had a big effect on me – it was a real turning point. I had achieved something new and there was a fresh challenge. I wanted to lift big! I had got back my motivation to lift by surprising myself – it all suddenly clicked and the drive I’d been looking for over the past few years since London, was back!

I really went for it. I started lifting heavy for the whole of 2015 and improved my squats massively! I went from 140kg for 5 reps to 200kg for 8 reps, which is huge and showed my commitment that had been missing for so long.

With my motivation back, I visited Chris at his house. He was a real mentor to me at the time and I sat down with him and he helped me write a plan of how I would win gold in Rio.?

I left Chris’ house with very clear goals and with my target of winning another gold medal. I was back from the wilderness – and I felt ready!

The only downside to all the gym work was that it took it’s toll and I couldn’t ride my bike for a time as I was completely wrecked from all the gym work. I’d thrown everything into it and I’d never been so hit by fatigue in all my life. That led me to being in bad moods and having arguments with the coaches at the time over stupid stuff. Grumpy Phil

It took me four months to recover from that gym phase and to transfer that strength on to my bike.

During that time I’d bought a gopro which I decided to put on the start gate to see what kind of angles we could get just for fun. When I went home and looked at the footage, the feedback I got from it was amazing and a real game changer. I could see things in my technique that I didn’t even know I was doing wrong. I started analysing every single session so that I could focus on what to do better. I started rapidly improving as a result.?

I loved working with the Gopro, which led me to make videos, which I really enjoyed, so I filmed sessions and gave insights at what I do outside?of cycling and uploaded those to YouTube – I got amazing feedback from cycling fans about my video blogs so I carried on with them up to Rio.

Then suddenly, it was Olympic year again. 2016.

First up, we went to New Zealand and we had our new Man 3 by this point – Callum Skinner. Callum, Jason Kenny?and me were starting to come together as a team and finally finishing on podiums.

Finally January 2016 our first World cup Team sprint win! A sign that we are going into the right direction!

In the lead up to the World Championships in London, I started getting faster and faster – I did times the stop watch has never seen before! I knew I was going to do something special in my standing lap at the?London world championships – and I did. A 17.01 standing lap – the fastest lap that has ever been ridden at sea level. Not bad!

We still ended up 5th as it was a surprise to the boys behind me and they weren’t prepared for the fast start!

A lot of hard work went into the months between the world championships and the Rio Olympic games! We started getting really strong as a team! We’ve started doing amazing times in Training!?Times worthy of winning World championships!

Even though we hadn’t made it to the Top 4 in the last four years, we knew that we could really have a chance for a Olympic medal after seeing our times in training,

Rio Olympics 2016

We arrived at the Olympic Village and settled in. London was exciting because it was a home games, but in Rio it was different and to be honest, the games environment is a bit boring. Basically you train, rest up and wait until it’s food time and then bed time. Me, Callum & Jason played Civilisation, the computer game, all day every day, right up until race day. Playing computer games is the best way to waste time and distract yourself.

Then it was Race Day…

My whole race day procedure was different than it was in London. I was more experienced and I tried out a lot of new things to figure out what made me feel best for my standing lap.

I felt ready.

This time, I remember packing my bag and not feeling nervous at all.

We arrived at the velodrome and it was full, and to our surprise, it was full of British flags! It really felt like being back at the London games and having a home crowd behind us.

I walked to the start gate, not nervous at all – it was a strange feeling, as in London I had felt nervous and immature – Now, I was calm which allowed me to actually start enjoying the whole race build up and atmosphere. I think it was a sign of experience – I’d grown up and I was worlds apart at 23 from the 19 year old in London.

I was in the start gate and we were off. When I pullef of from my man 1 lap, I saw Callum got on Jason very comfortable and that's when I knew that we would be up there on the scoreboard. Callum finished and I looked up and saw ‘Great Britain’, Olympic Record.

We managed to qualify fastest, ahead of New Zealand, who were the current world champions at the time. We were 1 tenth of a second ahead of them and had a comfortable gap to 3rd and 4th place.

I knew that we could really win it again today. We just had to beat the Kiwi team…

In the semi-final we knew we just had to do the same ride again as we had a comfortable gap to 3rd and 4th place. To our surprise, the Kiwi team went even faster and broke our Olympic Record that we had only just set. The competition was on!

It was Great Britain against New Zealand in the final!

We all recovered really well from the semi final, and we still had one good ride in us. I remember looking in the New Zealand pit and seeing the riders struggling to recover which gave me another confidence boost. I said to Callum, just moments before walking up the stairs ‘We are going to win it now’.

Walking up the stairs to the start gate, I knew I had to go as hard as I could and leave it all on the track! I was in the gate and we were off…I pulled off from my standing lap – 17.0, the same time I did at the World Championships. I looked over and and saw that Callum was on Jason’s back wheel. I looked over to the New Zealand team and their Man 3 was struggling to stay on.

Then, it was over. I looked over at the scoreboard…. It said ‘Great Britain’….’Gold’..,, New Olympic Record… we went two tenths faster than we did at the London games.

It was amazing. These games felt so different. I was in great shape and some people laugh when I say that race was the easiest race I’ve done so far.

After the medal ceremony, I got stuck in dope control. so it was quite late when I was done. I remember walking through the empty velodrome, with my gold medal in my pocket. I took the bus home to our apartment and I went straight to sleep…. It couldn’t be more different to London. Back then, we had lots of media straight after the race – in Rio, it felt like we were just coming back from a training session.

Never one to disappoint – you’ll be pleased to hear that I did go out partying again to celebrate. Only four nights in a row this time as it was very difficult to get into town because the village was one hour away from where all the events were.

Partying over, I flew home a week before the closing ceremony. Sadly, I didn’t get upgraded to first class and I was sat in a middle seat in economy.?

When I got back, this time I knew what to expect after winning my second Olympic gold. I enjoyed time out with my girlfriend. This time, I made sure I took three months off, went on holiday and felt motivated and re-energised, ready to return to training.

When I was back at training I set my self goals, this time to target the individual events and I really wanted to do well at the 2017 World Championships, however two weeks into training, I tore my abductor and as a result my season was over – you can only qualify for the World Championships through riding a world cup and I missed the important races needed to qualify for it.?

However, as you’ve heard from the rest of my career, that’s the life of an athlete and anything can happen….

Since 2016 I’ve won my first World championships medal in 2018 which was silver and we made many World cup podiums! Another highlight was winning Commonwealth games silver again out at the Gold Coast! I'm still progressing my individual event career and made some big steps forward in the last 18months!

Stay tuned for Tokyo 2020

Phil