It won’t come as a massive shock to anyone to discover that everyone at LeBlanq rides a bike.
Nor that we enjoy a (carefully spaced out) social gathering, or take on an expectant look when they hear the most glorious instruction in the English language drift from the kitchen: “Service!”.
It’s sometimes easy to overlook that we’re all massive cycling fans too, no matter if we’ve spent our individually lengthy associations with the sport yelling at people from the proletariat side of the barriers or whistling by in that tunnel of sound. In fact, with Sean and Brad, we have the very personification of the superstar/superfan who doesn’t care which side of the barriers he’s on, as long he’s close to the barriers.
That’s why our line up brings nothing more to mind than a fantasy football selection, the ultimate expression of fan involvement (“Just looking at the talent they’ve got warming the bench is enough to frighten opposing managers, Geoff.”)
Which is a long-winded way of building up to the breathlessly excited announcement we’ve been bursting to blurt out since we began this Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman at the top of the page: LeBlanq has a reigning Olympic Champion at the heart of our starting XI. Wait: a double reigning Olympic Champion. Hang on: a double reigning World Record holder.
A well-worn thread of discussion regarding pretty much every elite sporting title
One fought over since that fellow ran home after the Battle of Marathon to be first with the breaking news is the classic: is it harder to win the title the first time, or to retain it?* If this is a question that has ever occupied your mind, fret no longer, as you can simply ask Joanna Rowsell, as she is a member of a very elite club. As a member of that incredible London 2012 GB team pursuit trio that set a new standard for the humans-as-sublime-performance-machinery analogies that have always accompanied the most aesthetically pleasing of all sporting disciplines, Joanna’s place in the pantheon of greats was assured. The World Record was broken in the quarter-final, again in the semi-final and once more as the gold medals were secured. To return four years later to retain that Olympic Champions tag in Rio - despite the reaction from a pack of wounded rivals that such a landmark result provokes - places Joanna and her teammates on an ever-shrinking podium of the greatest champions.
*The runner returning from Marathon, by the way, is a strong piece of evidence for the camp who believe retaining the trophy is more difficult than the first visit to the top step of the podium. Dying within seconds of achieving your target for the first time makes a repeat performance a big ask.
Her personal medal and trophy haul from a career that began and ended at the top would make Ali Baba jealous.
But among those umpteen World, National, Olympic, European and Commonwealth medals for her peerless achievements as a team pursuit rider, there’s a World Championship rainbow jersey for the individual pursuit too. Proof, if needed, that she’s not only a respected and revered teammate, but a champion who leads by example.
Lockdown has been busier for Joanna than many of us. She is quick to apologise when it has taken her hours to respond to a call or email. She is more reserved about explaining the reasons for the delay, but we have no such need to stay quiet and we’ll shout it from the rooftops if anybody asks us. In the midst of her training to become a doctor - for which she’s just received a First Class Honours in Human Biology - Joanna has been working non-stop at her local hospital in Shrewsbury in the frontline of the fight against Covid-19. And she’ll be starting her full degree in medicine this September at St George’s hospital in Tooting.
When someone has been a hero for her country and all of us who call it home on so many occasions, it seems fitting that she goes into battle every day under the banner of St George. More and more the MBE she received in 2013 for services to cycling seems to us to be a little short of the mark.
by John Deering
Image Credit - Graham Watson