‘Heartbreak’ for Dowsett as Trentin snatches victory at the death
‘I’m bad when I just swim. I’ve tried to make it a bit more social for myself ’
Alex Dowsett almost pulled off a dramatic victory on stage two of the OVO Energy Tour of Britain, escaping solo with a few kilometres remaining only to suffer “heartbreak” as the sprinters came around him with 100metres to go.
In the end, Italian Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-scott) won from Jasper De Buyst (Lotto-soudal). But it was Dowsett who lit up the 165.9km in Rio, where she won two medals. But Tai says it was an experience she found difficult to process.
“Rio was a weird one. I’ve blurred out the medals the most, I’m not sure why. I don’t remember racing at all. It was overwhelming, there aren’t any events that can prepare you for that.”
She has since admitted Rio was one of her lowest points and around the time she “lost [her] love for the sport”. Based in the National Performance Centre in Manchester ahead of the Games as part of GB’S Para swimming squad, Tai says it was too intense an environment.
“It was so mentally draining, not having a social circle outside of the six other swimmers was quite toxic. Since Rio I’ve tried to broaden my horizons.”
Those horizons have taken her to training at a club in Ealing, ahead of beginning a degree in neuroscience at Middlesex University later this month. Term starts not long after she is due to compete in the World Paraswimming Championships at the stage in the Scottish Borders, which started and ended in Kelso.
Dowsett went for it after an attack by Pavel Sivakov (Ineos) up the third and final climb of the day, which distanced some of the pure sprinters, such as race leader Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-visma) and Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data).
Seeing compatriot Steve Cummings (Dimension Data) go clear with 4km to go, Dowsett decided to try to go with him, immediately putting daylight between himself and the front of the peloton.
“The first plan was just to make it over the climb, then once I was London Aquatics Centre this week, but rather than having too much on her plate – with Tokyo 2020 less than a year away – she says expanding her social circles and interests is helping her excel.
“I’m bad when I just swim. I’ve tried to make it a bit more social for myself. There are swimmers all over the world and I see them once a year at a major competition – I might as well reach out and make friends with some of them. So I’ve been to Milan this year to train.”
She is also a keen musician and briefly dipped her toe in a music degree before deciding she was more suited to science, but still has eight instruments at home where she lives with student friends she made during her time at university. The living arrangement is an unusual one, but one Tai enjoys
– if not at the times her flatmates return from a night out a couple of hours before her 5am alarm.
Tai’s approach outside the pool is that of a typical young adult. She “fangirls” when fellow Paralympian Ellie Simmonds there, I knew it was a reduced group,” said the Katusha-alpecin rider. “Groenewegen was gone. We’d unfortunately lost Jens
Bold move: Alex Dowsett’s decision to attack in the final kilometres nearly paid off
Debusschere, who’d normally be our priority for a stage result. That kind of opened the doors. I was looking for an opportunity at about acknowledges her, playfully encourages her more junior team-mates to sneak cake behind the staff ’s back and dreads potentially embarrassing moments.
“I’m scared my flatmates are going to print off a massive poster of a mugshot of me and hold it up during my race at worlds – because they would,” she says.
“You’ll scan the crowd and my mum and dad and grandparents will have their Union Jacks with ‘Team Tai’ on them, and then my mates with [a picture of ] me looking disgusting.”
As for the racing, with all her goals “ticked off ” the original list she made, it is now about competing with herself. She broke seven world records over four days in her S8 races at the World Series in June, and says the home crowd will keep her motivated this week.
“Every time I swim in the Aquatics Centre I get chills. Whenever I’ve won in the past I’ve never got emotional, but if I win at the worlds I’m going to be a blubbering mess.” 15km to go, but the pace was a bit too high and nothing presented itself.
“Then with 3km to go, Mitchelton and Israel [Cycling Academy] couldn’t really decide who was going to do the pulling and there was some hesitations.
“I saw Cummings went and if he’s going then you know it’s a sign that it’s a good opportunity to go and I jumped onto him. I just went straight over the top.”
With 1.2km to go, the British time-trial champion still had a sixsecond gap as Israel Cycling Academy chased for Davide Cimolai. But he could not hold them off.
“It was always a maybe,” Dowsett said. “Like holy s---, this could be happening! [My sports director] was on the radio saying there was no one behind. I glanced once or twice and didn’t see anyone. Then I went over the bridge and caught a glimpse of them. You still need quite a big gap in that last kilometre because the guys who are sprinting just lift the pace so much. They’re doing 60 kph to your 50 kph.
“It was pretty heartbreaking them coming around me with 50-100 metres [to go].”
Trentin is the new race leader, with Cimolai next, 11 seconds down.