SAMANTHA LANE August 09, 2012
To fully understand the brilliance of Anna Meares's greatest victory, her greatest loss must be understood first.
The triumph materialised in a gripping, two-bout fight against imperious nine-time sprint world champion, Victoria Pendleton, the 28-year-old Queenslander's most fierce and long-held rival, in London yesterday.
It saw Meares, an underdog in the setting despite her own roll call of credentials, subject the defending Olympic sprint queen to an unforeseen crushing that was not only physical but deeply psychological.
Just four days earlier, however, Meares had left the velodrome in tears, having produced the worst performance of her career on the biggest stage. She was world title holder entering the keirin event, but finished second last. Pendleton stole her thunder and, in that eight-lap race before a roaring crowd that even a pre-Games pep talk from John Eales couldn't truly prepare Meares for, the British champion rode so fast many declared her unbeatable in the individual sprint contest that was to follow there and then.
Meares cried herself to sleep in the Olympic village that night, and felt so ashamed by what she had produced she couldn't look her coach Gary West in the eye the next day until he forced her to.
After a triumph that made up for every loss she has ever conceded to Pendleton, Meares, sitting in a makeshift television studio at around 1am on Wednesday (London time) accompanied only by Cycling Australia's media attache, recalled two factors that lifted her out of a hole and onto the top of a podium.
First came an order from her husband, Mark Chadwick, to end her year-long ban on chocolate. ''His rationale was spinach is as good for Popeye as chocolate is good for me,'' she told Fairfax with a hearty laugh.
But while that sugar hit was good, it quickly subsided. So Meares, who for the two weeks leading up to the Olympics cut herself off to all media and most communication, decided to break another ban.
''I sent a message out to my sponsors, my close friends and my family, asking for some support, which I've never done before and I felt very strange doing it. It was an apology,'' she said, tears triggered by the recollection.
''An apology to the closest people to me. I said 'I feel like I want to crawl into a corner and hide' but if they could offer some support I'd appreciate it.''
Raelene Boyle was among those who sent back a message that touched and inspired her. Another dear friend sent Meares a poem.
''It helped me hugely,'' she said.
''It stopped me thinking on the path I was thinking.''
After it all came back together and ended in the most famous of sprint victories, Meares had time to steal a kiss from her husband but nothing more.
A media binge had to take priority and when the cameras stopped rolling in the early hours of the morning the phones took over. Many calls had to be postponed, but not one from the Prime Minister.
''I can't believe you're talking to me,'' Meares exclaimed, delightedly swivelling in a chair in a room that had been filled with lights and cameras but now looked more like a bombing site.
As for where her rivalry with Pendleton was left, following the British champion's last ever race, Meares paid tribute to some acts of genuine grace. Pendleton had extended a congratulatory hand to Meares on the track after she had been beaten, but this was nothing new or particularly special. What was more significant was an exchange in the subterranean corridors of the velodrome as the pair was forced to spend more than a few moments together after their medal ceremony was delayed inexplicably.
''She was very emotional when I walked down the tunnel,'' Meares said. ''She gave me a hug and I thought it was just going to be a hug and a congratulations, and that we'd then go our separate ways as it has been in the past. But she kind of hung on and she said 'you're a champion, you deserve this'.
''Then she leant me a hairbrush because I didn't have a hairbrush or a make-up kit. We were sharing the mirror to try to fix our sweaty hair. I don't know why our ceremony was delayed but we had a lot of time and we just started to talk, and it was good.''
Meares's final word on Pendleton was that cycling would miss her.