Cycling: Cooke hungry to emulate the 'Cannibal's' feats of pedal power

Easy as it would be to dismiss a 20-year-old athlete talking about their own place in history as just another sportsperson with a generously over-inflated ego, in the case of Nicole Cooke that might just be a mistake.

In 2001, the Welshwoman from Cowbridge forged her own niche in the record books when she became the first ever cyclist, male or female, to make a clean sweep of all three major World Championship categories – road, time-trial and mountain bike – at any level.

And now in 2003, as a second-year professional, just three days after becoming the first British rider to take a World Cup event, the Amstel Gold in the Netherlands, she secured a second World Cup victory in Belgium and moved into the lead of the series overall.

"In 10 or 20 years' time I want people to look back and remember this as the Nicole Cooke era. I want to be the best," Cooke explains over the phone from her home in Cornuda, a village in northern Italy close to the headquarters of her Ausra-Groudis squad.

Cooke has always had few problems making her future objectives clear: aged 12, she was recorded on a video made at the Maindy velodrome in Cardiff as saying she wanted to win a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics.

Then at 15, Cooke inspected the World Championships road-race circuit, a title for which she would not be eligible for a further two years, but which she won in October 2000.

Having secured those three World Championships golds in 2001, Cooke turned professional in 2002, snapping up another seven races for her already bulging trophy cabinet, the high point being the Commonwealth Games road-race title in August.

"I think I turned a few heads and some people were quite surprised at how quickly I could adapt at a professional level," Cooke calmly reflects. But, as might be expected of someone so self-assured, neither of her two back-to-back World Cup wins this spring have been by chance, either.

In the first, in the hilly southern part of the Netherlands, Cooke took off with two other breakaways whom she then left for standing at the foot of the final climb near Maastricht. Just 72 hours later, in the Flêche Wallone event in Belgium, she blazed away from the pack at the foot of the notoriously challenging kilometre-long Mur [Wall] de Huy, overcoming its one-in-five slopes for another lone win.

Things have gone so well, in fact, that Cooke insists that "the pressure is completely off me in the team. They're very pleased with me, in fact." An intriguing mixture of ambition and caution about her own limits runs through Cooke's attitude to the sport. Fully aware that, at her age, endurance is probably her weakest point, she will be riding the biggest stage race in Italy, the two-week long Women's Giro, purely as "training and preparation for the World Cups."

She adds: "This year I will be making the overall victory in the series a top priority, together with the Under 23s European Championships in August and the World's [in October] again."

The Giro and other stage races do figure later on in the Cooke masterplan. "I do have a detailed series of ideas," she admits, "about my career as far as the 2004 Olympics, and then I know what I will be focussing on afterwards: major Tours."

While natural hindrances like age may hold her back for a while, there are other potential threats to her far-reaching goals. Women's cycling suffers from a crippling lack of publicity and, by extension, financial backing, which means, for example, that the Tour de France Feminin, the sport's blue riband event, may well not go ahead this year.

"If you want to ride for a women's professional team, there's not that much of a problem because most of the time you have to pay your own way," Cooke explains. "It's only when you've got some big results that they start paying you."

The grindingly low budgets do mean Cooke's rapid rise to stardom is unlikely to go to her head: she lives in a shared house with her Ausra-Groudis team-mates, run by a widowed Italian mamma, who "looks after us while we keep her company. It's a very peaceful lifestyle, and if I avoid the rush-hour traffic at 12 when the factory shifts change, the area's great for training, too."

Her time off is spent – surprise, surprise – soaking up sports history books, especially those about her own idol, Eddy "the Cannibal" Merckx, winner of one race out of every three he rode and widely recognised as the best rider of all time.

"I admire his determination," Cooke, not exactly short on what the Italians like to call grinta herself, muses.

And in fact, looking at what Cooke's achieved so far, it is hard to predict what else could stop her from paralleling Merckx in other ways as well.

Alasdair Fotheringham writes for Cycling Weekly

Nicole Cooke: The story so far

17 March 2002: Wins her second race as a professional, the Citta de Rosignano in Italy.

7 April: Confirms strength in one-day racing with victory in Pasquale di Carlo race in Italy.

12 May: Shows climbing versatility by taking stage and King of the Mountains title at Tour Midi Pyrenees.

14 July: Wins British Women's Road Race Championships, a title she had first won at age of 16 against more experienced rivals.

3 August: Charges to lone Commonwealth Games road-race victory.

6 October: Takes last of seven wins in season, Ronde Van Westerbeek in the Netherlands.

20 April 2003: Wins Amstel Gold, Britain's first World Cup event.

23 April: Wins the Flêche Wallone race and moves into overall lead in World Cup.