Cycling: Lizzie sends busy signal that she is best of new bunch

No sport rides higher than cycling after the gold-pedal power that left the rest of the world feeling saddle-sore in Beijing. It was a particularly glittering Olympics for Britain's women, whose record medal collection was given a heady start when the redoubtable Nicole Cooke kick-started the Games with the first British victory.

The subsequent achievements in the velodrome of Vicky Pendleton and Rebecca Romero helped cement cycling as the sport upon which Britain's prospects of another golden haul in 2012 will be built. But fresh talent will be needed to make it happen, so are there any more at home like them?

Actually yes – there is a whole clutch of youngsters coming off Dave Brailsford's prolific production line at Manchester's globally envied cycling academy.And among them is the 19-year-old who is tipped as potentially the best of them all.

Lizzie Armitstead, from Otley, Yorkshire, has already won medals at world junior and European senior level on the track, and next weekend she will be in Varese, Italy, competing in her first senior world road race championship alongside Cooke and the Beijing silver medallist, Emma Pooley, in a seven-strong Team GB. Hopes are high for another British victory, although Armitstead realistically recognises she is unlikely to be on the podium – not this time round, anyway. She is there as a "bunch" rider, and explains: "The etiquette of cycling means part of my job is to protect Nicole, as she is the Olympic champion and no one really wants to see her beaten by a 19-year-old – although I am sure no one would complain if I got gold for Britain! But if I came fourth and she got second, they would say I hadn't done my job.

"Because when it comes to the finish there will probably be 30 left in the bunch and Nicole will need a wheel to sit on. My finishing line is 200 metres beforethe actual finish, so I am sprinting for that line to take out everybody else so she can go it alone."

It is a situation Armitstead accepts, but come 2012 things could be different for the girl who hails from the same territory as arguably Britain's greatest-ever female cyclist, the late Beryl Burton, twice a world champion on the road and five times on the track.

Armitstead lives on the outskirts of Leeds, as did Burton, and like her she is an all-rounder, competing in scratch and points races on the track, though she considers the road her forte. At school she competed in athletics as an 800- metre runner, but was enticed into cycling at 13 when a British Cycling talent-spotting van came to her school.

"It seemed a good way of getting out of lessons for a bit," she says. "We rode round cones in a field and I beat all the boys. They told me I had potential. I'd hardly ever cycled before – getting on a bike isn't the coolest thing for a girl –so it really all started from there."

Her father, John, himself a keen recreational cyclist, says: "When she came home from school after that first test she said, 'I'm going to ride for Great Britain.' I told her, 'Don't be daft, you're talking rubbish.' Just shows how wrong you can be."

It was watching the cycling World Cup in Manchester in 2005 that convinced her to take the sport seriously. Her first major championship was the junior worlds in Vienna, where she won silver. "From there I got on to the Olympic development programme and I was taken into the academy at Manchester. But I had a bit of a setback with a bout of glandular fever and got two fourth places at the next World Championships, in Ghent."

This year she was shortlisted for the Beijing road-race squad but had to undergo a back operation on 1 May after suffering a spinal stress fracture. "For some reason, just getting on the bike left me with a completely dead leg. I was off the bike for eight weeks, so missed out on selection and had to watch the Games on the box. I was so pleased when all those gold medals started coming; seeing Nicole, Vicky and Rebecca all winning I thought was particularly great for women's sport. But I couldn't help wishing I was there.

"Yes, I was pleased, but I admit there was a tinge of jealousy, I honestly felt that could have been me. I had raced in Belgium a few weeks before Beijing and beatenquite a lot of the girls who were in the Olympics – one of them even got a silver medal. It was a bit frustrating."

Lottery funding enables Armit-stead, whose boyfriend, Adam Blythe, is an international road- racer, to be a full-time athlete. She is also supported by herteam, Halfords-Bikehut, andlives in the academy accommodation in Manchester, but enjoys escaping occasionally to the family home in Otley, where she can ride up the hills and down the dales.

The World Championships will be her first major test since her operation, and the first time she will have raced against her idol Cooke since her junior days.

Like Pendleton, she is surprisingly petite for a sport which demands so much strength. "What really gives me the buzz about cycling is the speed I can achieve. I like to push myself as hard as I can and I just love whizzing round corners. I think the reason we have had so much success is the sheer hard work put in by everyone concerned. If you are any good you are given the opportunity to show it."

The mantra of Brailsford, cycling's Svengali, dictates that there isn't much room for silver threads among the gold; winning is paramount. It is one Armitstead subscribes to: "Because all the athletes above you are so successful it gives you something to strive for, but it's a performance-based programme and it can be very ruthless. If you are not getting results then you are off. I've seen quite a few good girls go off the programme and some will say that's not fair, but that's the way it works. You've got to get results."

Says her academy coach, Simon Cope: "Lizzie is very challenging to coach. She is very deter-mined and has a very aggressive nature when racing, which sometimes can be a hindrance. I am trying to get on top of that.

"She needs to use it when she needs to and not keep trying to smash everyone into the ground, but it's a trait worth having. She's a bubbly girl and quite opinionated, always upbeat.

"At the moment I would say she is the best up-and-coming rider we've got, both on the road and on the track. She is a gutsy rider and very much an all-rounder – I think she'd even do well on a mountain bike. She rode brilliantly in the European Track Championships two weeks ago, winning the gold with Jo Rowsell (another top prospect) in the team pursuit, and they were close to the world record. She was also equal first in the scratch race and finished second in the points

"On the road, she hasn't reallyhad an opportunity to ride any stage races this year because of her injury, but hopefully by the end of 2009 we can place her in a world-class pro team. In Varese, she will be helping Nicole as a bunch rider, as it is very much a team event. Nicole is someone she looks up to but also wants to challenge eventually."

Armitstead will be taking part in the track World Cup in Manchester next month, already a sell-out, but her principal target is 2012, when she wants to show Cooke a clean pair of wheels.

"Nicole and I are friends and team-mates, but obviously in a sense rivals too. I have tremendous respect and admiration for her, but my aim is to beat her – in London, if not before." Meanwhile, she is happy to be called the best of the bunch.

Nicole Cooke: Message from an icon

"Lizzie has made great progress coming through the categories and has had great success in the European Championships. In the time I've spent with herboth racing and with theHalfords team I've seen her real determination to keep on going, and this is probably what will carry her through to 2012.

She is certainly on the right track to get on the podium and I wish her well, though obviously I'll be doing all I can to make sure it isn't me she beats on the road.

Her attitude to training and aggressive nature when racing count for a lot – she is certainly going about becoming an outstanding competitor in the right way. She is a really good member to have on our team, always lively and very positive in whatever she is trying to do.

It's always great fun racing with her and she is a nice person too. I am not surprised her ambition is to beat me one day, as she is a winner inside, just as I am.

It's natural she would want to be the best. I have exactly the same thoughts myself, they are the thoughts of a champion, and that's not a bad thing. Like me, she has had some injury problems and it's good for her to have a role model. A lot of people helped me through my injuries, and if I can be an inspiration to her I am very pleased. The more aspiring young champions we have like Lizzie, the better it is for the sport.

She has come into the sportat a very good time. It is very heartening to see how British women's cycling has progressed since the 2004 Olympics and how much more publicity we are getting. Before Athens, women's cycling in Britain was not very strong, which is why I had to move abroad, basing myself in Italy. If Lizzie does get on to an international pro team nextyear it will certainly help her career, giving her that extra edge and experience."

Nicole Cooke is the current Olympic and Commonwealth Games road race champion. Cooke, 25, leads Team GB in the World Championships in Varese, Italy, next Sunday

The British Olympic Association, formed in 1905, are the National Olympic Committee for Britain and Northern Ireland. They prepare the nation's finest athletes at the summer, winter and youth Olympics, and deliver elite-level support services to Britain's Olympic athletes and their national governing bodies. For more details: olympics.org.uk