Cycling: Pendleton uses her loaf

Olympic cycling champion Victoria Pendleton is encouraging kids to get cycling as the new face of Hovis bread.

The 29-year-old will star in a recreation of Ridley Scott’s 1973 Hovis advert, featuring a small boy pushing a bike laden with loaves through a northern town to the tune of Dvorak’s “New World” symphony, voted the nation’s favourite advertisement of all time in 2006.

As the new ‘girl on bike’ Pendleton has signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Hovis that will include a series of healthy eating initiatives and educational campaigns.

“I hope to inspire a new generation of girls and boys on bikes who enjoy cycling as much as I did when I was younger,” Pendleton told press.

“I’d maybe even like to inspire some cycling champions of the future.”

Pendleton first rode for Great Britain in 2002 and claimed an Olympic gold medal in Beijing in 2007. She is about to head to Perth in preparation for the World Championships in Copenhagen this March and the Commonwealth Games.

Here she talks about the IOC’s recent decision to give parity to men and women cyclists in some Olympic events as well as her new role as Hovis’ ‘girl on the bike’: