SMOKED TROUT ON BAKED TOAST & HORSERADISH MAYONAISE
In your 30s, everyone starts watchtapping. They want you to settle down. But the truth is I’ve got no desire to have children
SHOP-BOUGHT crispy French toast was a part of my years as a young chef. I’d smother it with Philadelphia and then top it with a bit of smoked salmon. But I had never made the toast, until now. The bread dries to become crispy and crunchy, and is eaten at room temperature rather than hot. So you can really take your time with this easy dish, as nothing can go cold. I think it’s a genius idea, and it only took me 42 years to come up with it!
Serves 6
6 slices of sourdough bread, cut to a thickness of about 1 cm
1 medium egg
5-6 dsp mayonnaise
Fresh horseradish, grated (or horseradish sauce), to your taste
6 smoked trout fillets fillets, broken into pieces
2 medium-sized gherkins, finely sliced
1 shallot, finely sliced
20 g (¾ oz) capers
Watercress or herbs of your choice, chopped
Sea salt flakes
PREHEAT oven to 120c/fan 100c/gas ½. Cook the bread slices for 40 minutes, while you prepare the other ingredients. (You can toast the bread under a medium grill, but it won’t be the same.)
hard-boil the egg, drain and leave to cool. Peel and slice very finely. In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise with grated horseradish, or horseradish sauce, to your taste.
Let the toast cool to room temperature. Spread the mayonnaise and horseradish mixture on each slice of toast. Lay the trout pieces on top of the mayonnaise and horseradish mixture, then add the sliced egg. Garnish with the gherkins and shallot, add a few capers to each slice, and sprinkle with the herbs and a pinch of sea salt.
just have to.’ So is it a relief, now, not to have to make relationships subservient to sport?
Victoria thinks for a moment before replying. ‘I would still love to be an athlete more than anything else in the world. I love pushing myself to be faster and stronger. I don’t mind it being hard work and anti- social. But you can’t be an athlete for ever.’
But surely it’s liberating to be able to enjoy life free from the rigid constraints of training?
‘I really don’t know,’ she responds. ‘Freedom is paralysing in some ways. You have options and you don’t really know what to do.
‘It’s very strange going from all the disciplines of training and living by a set of rigid rules to life now. I love knowing what I’m doing a year in advance. So living with those routines was reassuring. I really enjoyed it.’
There is something affecting about the rawness of her honesty. She recognises that at the heart of elite sport there is a paradox.
After chasing her dad, a successful amateur cyclist, up hills on her bike from her early teens, she dedicated her young life to an enterprise that became an addiction. Even now she strives to replicate the nervy euphoria that preceded those huge athletic triumphs. ‘It is an incredible feeling, like electric within your body, the sense of anxiety and nervousness you get when you’re about to perform in front of huge crowds with high expectations.
‘The home [2012] Olympics, when I was reigning world champion — the pressure was unbelievable, the anxiety incredible. And I realise the feeling of nervous anxiety was something I enjoyed pushing myself through. I felt totally alive. I absolutely thrived on it.
‘I’ve asked myself many times:
“Why do I still desire this?” I rode round in circles very fast. It was an exercise in futility. But then again, most sport doesn’t really make much sense. And having won gold, you just feel numb. Regardless of the outcome of a race, you feel an anti- climax. There are these incredible highs and lows. All the effort and anticipation has gone. You’re left with nothing except what can you do to be even better in the next competition.
‘There is no space dedicated to enjoying what you’ve just done. The reward is that the lifetime of sacrifice has not been in vain. And there is a sense of pride, of honour in representing your country.
‘I don’t regret a single moment. It was hard, but even the bad bits are character- building. Then comes life after retirement . . .
‘People are more interested in post-athletic career struggles now, but some sports do it better than others.’ She does not elaborate.
The self- sacrifice, the endless quest for physical self-improvement, has left her with a compulsion to exert herself to extremes.
‘I must keep pushing the boundaries. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t try. I want to eliminate all my fears. Lots of things frighten me — like really deep water, so I want to learn to free-dive — but I don’t believe fear is a deterrent. I feel compelled to face it.’
However, reaching midlife has brought self-knowledge. She used to think she should conform to what was expected of her; now she can simply do as she wishes.
‘I don’t think I’ll get married again,’ says Victoria. ‘I realise I felt pressured by society to do so. It was a requirement. Now I’m older and wiser I know it isn’t something I genuinely want.
‘I felt it was socially acceptable: you get to your early 30s, marry and have a family. I’d never dreamt of doing that, but I didn’t pipe up and object to it.’
Her wedding to Scott, at a lush country manor house in Cheshire in 2013, featured in Hello! magazine. Team GB mates gathered and the Strictly house band performed. (She was a contestant on the show in 2012.)
‘ The wedding itself just got bigger and bigger, and farther away from what I wanted,’ she recalls. ‘I’d have settled for bare feet and a beach in Thailand; something private and simple.
‘I’ve got to the point, too, where
I realise I’m totally happy not having children. In my 20s I knew people wanted me to settle down and live the fairy tale. And because I spent so much of my life living an atypical existence, I thought I needed to cram it all in before it was too late.
‘Then I retired and an intriguing thought occurred to me: what would it be like not to try to please people?
‘I’d put everything on hold for sport, and hadn’t had the freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted. So clinging onto normality — like getting married — was a form of security blanket. I was fitting into the system.
‘Then you get to your 30s and everyone starts watch-tapping. You’re supposedly pre- conditioned to want children. But the truth is I have no desire to have them, and now I feel much more inclined to be honest with myself and go with my gut instinct.’
She concedes that her divorce was traumatic: ‘It was disruptive and torturous for many years and I don’t need another one.’
For someone so garlanded with success, self-doubt still lurks. Not helped by the attitude of others towards successful women.
‘I consider myself to be sensitive, hugely driven, disciplined, determined and very resilient. I can put up with a lot of suffering before I break. They aren’t bad qualities, are they? But it seems as a woman, I should only have them in moderation. People prefer women to be less successful.’
She says this ruefully. It is a theme she explores with Judy Murray (mother of tennis aces Andy and Jamie Murray) in her TV series Driving Force on Sky Sports. Pendleton says she has been judged harshly for showing a surfeit of emotion: ‘I cried on the podium when I won gold. Everyone pointed it out and made a big deal of my being a weak and wobbly female. Did they say anything when Chris Hoy cried?’
It is easy to warm to Victoria. She is open, honest, engaging and funny. I tell her I read that she’d had £1,500 worth of Botox when she turned 40 and she hoots with laughter. ‘If I did, it didn’t work very well, did it?’ she says, corrugating her forehead with a frown.
What does she see herself doing at 80? ‘ I hope I’m still riding horses. The Queen still does at 94, which delights me. And I hope I’ll still be hiking, and fit enough to get my leg over the saddle of my motorbike. And if we’re reincarnated, I’d like to come back as a jockey. It is massively dangerous and you’re full of adrenalin. It’s terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. Everything I love.’
Meanwhile, her motorbike is waiting: it’s time to go. As she roars off into the dwindling daylight, you sense her midlife rebellion won’t be over for a while yet.
Driving Force, an 11-part series from POW Tv for Sky Sports, is presented by Judy Murray. victoria’s episode is tonight at 9pm. victoria is also ambassador for e.On’s Change the Weather campaign, a clean air initiative. FOR confidential support if you’re struggling to cope, call the Samaritans ( samaritans. org) on 116 123.
‘I wasn’t even looking for a boyfriend. Then a friend of a friend set me up on a blind date’ ‘My divorce was disruptive and torturous for many years and I don’t need another one’