An Interview With Helen Wyman - Team Swift Racing

 

News Posted: 5th March 2008

Interview and Images: Joolze Dymond

For Helen Wyman, cycling has always been a way of life. As a child, her early memories are of riding on the back of her parents' tandem long before she could walk and so the stage was set and the seed sown. However she didn't turn her attention to racing until her older brother Greg got involved and where big brother led, younger sister followed. And so her illustrious racing career began at the tender age of 14. Soon she was regularly racing against the likes of Nicole Cooke, Ruisine Airstone and Ceris Gilfilian, where she held her own and her talent began to shine through.

Her introduction to Cyclo-Cross came in 2000. Due to time commitments in the summer months when she was studying hard to gain a degree in Physiotherapy, she had to curtail her busy racing schedule. Leaving only the winter months to get some racing in led to a dabble with Cyclo-Cross. This opened up a whole new world for her; including international racing and even a husband! She met Stefan in a service station after a CX race in Abergavenny - who said romance and mud don't mix! When she completed her studies she went on to concentrate on her work, racing only CX and so her prowess and at this demanding sport began to grow and the rest as they say is now history.

Her first national jersey in CX came in 2005 and since then she hasn't looked back with two more National titles to add to her name plus a consistent showing in World Cup CX races over the last few seasons. She has graced the podium more than a few times now but that elusive top step is still the hardest to obtain. However Wyman is confident that this will only be a matter of time before she climbs that pinnacle and claims what she feels will be hers, the ultimate goal of World Champion.

2007, was shaping up to be a 'will she-wont she?' type of year, as we saw Wyman get ever closer to her dream. However her hopes for this year's World Champs were dashed as she had a less that perfect ride, disappointing herself and her myriad of fans, along the way. Undaunted, the young and experienced rider is under no illusion that her time will surely come and has both the confidence and the belief that this will happen. As part of the hugely successful Team Swift racing, with great support from a UK based sponsor, Wyman should ultimately realise her dream. We caught up with her at the recent World CX Championships to find out how life is for the Belgium based rider, coming off a promising season?

You are based full time in Belgium and you are known extensively over there, they seem to have adopted you as their own?
Yeah, although another girl has started to overshadow me, but she's a real Belgium so I can't complain. But yes I am regarded as Belgium's no.1 woman 'cross rider. I get more accolades over in Belgium than I do in my home country but then the sport is so much different here. In Belgium it's more popular than football. You only have to travel to a cross race in Belgium to see how seriously they all take the sport. It's a pity that the British public isn't as supportive of these types of sports.

You've had a pretty good season in 2007, both on the road and CX, were you pleased with your results?
Yeah I was pretty happy with how it went. I had a much slower start to my cross than 2006 and that kind of affects your confidence a bit but it's been good, it's been really good. I achieved better results than I did before and I finished fourth in the World ranking so although I was third all last year I guess with my second spot, I achieved in Milan, it's better than last year. It's just in the beginning of the season I was eleventh in my first World Cup and the previous year on the same race I got third, so that disappointed me to begin with, but you have to keep telling yourself no I'm aiming for Milan that's my first good World Cup, but at the back of your mind you're, 'yes but I got third last year and now I'm down in eleventh I must be really rubbish'. But no I'm really good and when I got second in Milan that was good and it was great to see Gabby (Day) on the podium as well so then you get all confident again.

Your confidence in yourself and your ability seems to have increased tenfold last year, don't get me wrong, you always seem confident but this year you do seem to have more of an 'edge' is it something you've been working on?
I don't know if that's something I've been consciously working on but this is like my third or fourth season of being in the top ten of the world rankings the whole time, so you get confidence from that and every year I get better. This year I was a lot better at the start of the season but suddenly the riders around you are better as well and that's really annoying! You work so hard and get so much stronger and then all of a sudden so are six other people and you're like 'oh, what's the point' but then as you go through the season you learn that some of them are strong in the beginning and they tail away towards the end, it's good because the more riders that are riding at a really good level and are able to beat you, the better you become because you have to be better to beat them, so that's good. It makes you work harder all the time, which can only help improve my game.

There is quite a long season ahead of you; a full road season as well as 'cross, but I guess cross is your main focus now isn't it?
Yes 'cross is my main focus of the year and I really really want to concentrate hard on my cross next season because it's fine hanging around in third to tenth place all year in the World rankings but it would be nice to be number 1. So that's my goal for next season. This year Swift Racing have a much stronger road team, so when you're only the fourth or fifth strongest rider in your team then you have to do the major road races otherwise your team doesn't look strong and you don't get good results and this year we have eight or nine strong girls for the road, so although I'm going to be doing something to earn my place on the team, it means it'll be a lot harder for me to get into the team that Stef picks for the races so in a way that's a good thing because I can say now that I want to aim more specifically for cross and I don't have to do all of the big races. I still want to be able to do some but I'm going to work really hard to do them, even though I'm married to the boss, I don't have a direct access to the races, we all get picked for our merits.

What is the fascination of 'cross though, after all it's just a quick sprint around a field isn't?
It's so hard and it kills you and when you finish you know you've really tried as hard as you can and there's very rarely any tactics involved. You just go as fast as you can and if you can beat your rivals then great. But in a road race, its all about timing your moves, deciding who to mark, who will make the break, who won't and I find road racing a real lottery where as cross, if you're the most powerful and the fastest and the strongest rider who can go round corners as fast as everyone else, you're gonna win.

Women's CX racing as come a long way in a relatively short time, which has been the most exciting event for you so far?
Hofstade World Cup was the most exciting race I have ever ever been in and it was amazing Women's World Cup this is the 7th year of World Cups, 7th year of World Champs for women and its just improved so much, you just wouldn't believe how much its improved and this year in that race you could not predict who would win that race until the very last lap. 6 people at the front and Daphny Van Den Brand went off the front first and came back, then Hanka went off the front and came back, I went off the front and promptly went out the back, next Reza Hormes-Ravenstijn came from the back of the group and went to the front and got pulled back. When the Belgium girl Sanne Cant in the group made an effort and you just couldn't believe the amount of Belgians that were cheering for her. Then Maryline Salvetat went right, it's my turn and went off the front, stayed away for a lap and won the race. And you just would not have known that would happen it was amazing it was just so good to see that women's CX racing can be that exciting, up till then it had always been always either Daphne, Hanka, or Maryline.

Is it disappointing though that there aren't more British girls really going places in CX?
It is disappointing and its quite annoying especially at the first world cup of the season, your gridding in that first race is based on your nations ranking, so as me and Gabby are usually the only GB girls with UCI points, we get a really rubbish ranking.

Not only is it annoying that there aren't more GB girls having a go but its really sad to see, three or four years ago there was me, Louise Robinson, Sue Thomas, Gabby Day and Isla Rowntree all vying for the podium. I've only won the National CX for three years and when I won it for the first time it was this amazing thing to have beaten Louise and now there's nobody that can challenge Gabby and me. No offence to Annie Last, she's a really good rider but when I first started I may not have been as good as her but there was still no way back then that an 18 year old would have won the National Series in the UK as you had such a strong bunch of good riders that made it so hard to contest. It would be good if Annie came out to Belgium next year to do a few races, then she'll see the level of racing should be. I can't use my time coming back to the UK where there are no UCI points, so she wouldn't have experience of racing against me regularly as she should do, to bring her on. She tried really hard at the Nationals to stay with me and Gabby but she blew monumentally, because she's not used to our level of racing and there's no one in the UK racing that hard anymore. I don't want that to sound derogative but it such a different level in Europe to the UK.

Every World Cup if I've had a bad ride. I'd probably be two minutes down, if Gabby was the only person within a minute to me at the Nationals and Isla was three minutes down and she was third place. So if you're three minutes down on me you're shifting round in 35th place in a World Cup so in reality there is a massive gulf and I don't know how you can change that. The only way forward is for the best British riders to come out to Belgium and try the races, both Louise and Isla did that and they succeeded, they both got some awesome results. They now don't want to do that any more and they are the best riders in England, which is a shame for the other girls as well. It's a big decision that you can't take lightly but if it's what you want to do you have to find the ways to expand your experience and to enable yourself to measure where you are against other competitors. In life you have ambitions, when those ambitions are realised you pack it up and but it in a box and move on and I'm now at that point in my life where I need to achieve this part of my ambition. I've done it for physio that's in a box, it goes for school, and exams etc that's in a box too, and now I'm currently working on my cycling box. Of course the lid is still open as I still have a lot of things I want to achieve and moving to Belgium is helping me realise those ambitions. When you first start you get loads of people helping you and the Belgians are very nice people.

But to the majority of women out there who see 'cross, think it's muddy, held at the coldest time of the year and it's usually wet, how would you sell it to them?
It's a lot more glamorous than you think, honest! The girls look incredibly beautiful after the races. Just think about 20,000 cheering fans and it doesn't rain that much out there really. I think the glamour comes in the fact there are 20,000 people supporting the race and at least 1,000 could be cheering just for you. And that's exciting. Also the fun bit is walking around afterwards watching the men's race, in normal clothes and everyone recognises you. It's really good fun, it's really hard work for 40 minutes and when its done its done you've know you've done what you can as there is no where to hide out there.

You said your cycling ambitions box is still very open what do you want to still but in that box before you shut the lid?
Like I said earlier at some point I want to be World number 1 in CX, I want to be World Champion in 'cross and every year I can see those goals getting a little bit closer and I want to be winning World Cups, I'm still one step away from getting that top step at the podium at World Cups, I had two podiums in '06 and two in '07 so there's plenty I want to do and also there's things on the road I'd like to achieve as well. I haven't ever won a stage race that would be a good thing for me to do.

But can you combine both ambitions for road and cross?
Oh yeah definitely. If you want to do really well in cross you can start your season in the States in September and you can carry on racing until the second week of February, so if you have a month off, well the first big race for Swift Racing is on the 19th March, so even if you had a month off and didn't start training until the 19th March, by April you'll be back on good form again. You can be fit for the biggest stage race on the 12th May without any problems and as long as you take a break in the middle of the season do some big stage races at the end you'll be back in good condition for 'cross.

Is the World Champs a much bigger experience than World Cups?
In all honesty, for the women it's the same riders in the same style of race, you may get five or six randoms, but they generally don't affect the top ten, so really there's no difference for us as a race. It's good for me to think of it in that way as it doesn't put any extra pressure on me. It's just another race, just like doing the UK Nationals. A friend of mine said that 'if someone said to you you've got five more years of your career left and during that time I guarantee you'll win the worlds how would you feel?' Well I'd feel really, really relaxed and just go and really enjoy all my races, and she said 'every time you go and really enjoy your races how do you do?' Well I'm normally on the podium, there you go then!

You've been instrumental in helping to set up the first UCI registered Women's trade team in the UK back in 2006, now that team has evolved into team Swift Racing and is constantly growing, are you excited to see the growth and success of the team?
We've had over 200 riders apply to join the team this year, which we are delighted with. The thing with being based in Europe is that we are at quality races all the time, riders see you at races and the team doing well and they then want to get involved and we've had really good riders apply to be on the team but we're not quite at the right level to be able to supply them with what they need at the moment, but who knows in a years time it might be all different. This year the team is bigger than it was last year, next year it'll be bigger again. As soon as you get one or two big names on board like we have this year, next year we will attract even more and that's good and exciting not only for the team, but also for the younger riders we are looking after from the UK.

Team Swift Racing is sponsored by a British company
Yes Swift Motor Homes. Stef got in contact with the owners a couple of years back; they already had a time trail team in the UK that they looked after. Stef always works really hard to secure sponsors and he kept in contact with Swift and it just so happened that his contact was going to the Tour de France to watch it and we made contact with him he thought it would be good for us if we had a mobile home and now we have the pink mobile. It's so good that you have something that you can get changed in comfort, somewhere to eat, somewhere to shower and you can sleep on your way to races, it's brilliant!

Team Swift Racing still races in the UK
Yes we had a team at all the National Series last year. It's bit of a vicious circle - we went back to the UK when we were Team FBUK and we rode a few of the National series and we took a strong team and we dominated the series, and people were saying 'well of course they're going to win, there's seven riders in the race and they're the best team' and then you don't go again and then they start saying 'why weren't we there'. Last year we didn't do too much in the UK but that's more because we only had four British riders. We have five on board at the moment including one junior. We have a good coverage of disciplines with me and Gabby and one of the Dutch girls riding cross, while Louise and another Dutch girl ride track, so all we're missing really is a mountain biker and we'd have a complete set!

What are the team's ambitions?
To be as big and as good and a really happy team as we possibly can and, oh win as many races as a team as is humanly possibly. You can put six of the best riders in the world together and you can't guarantee they'll work as a team, but you can have six 'normal' riders that aren't as good, but if they work as a team they will beat the other girls every time. So that's what we want Swift racing to do.
My ambition is just to get a few more colours on my jersey, I've got three and only want another two and I'll be happy.

So how long do you think you will continue chasing this dream?
Well I'm only 26 at the moment and Louise didn't get her first medal at the Worlds until she was 34 so, I don't think I want to be doing it for quite that long but yeah I think I have a good six years left in me yet, definitely to the London Olympics.

Is that an ambition, to get selected for the Olympics?
Um ask me in two years time and we'll see how my road career is going...