Nicole Cooke facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Nicole Cooke
MBE

Cooke on the podium after winning the 2007 Geelong World Cup
Personal information
Full name	Nicole Denise Cooke
Nickname	The Wick Wonder, Cookie
Born	(1983-04-13) 13 April 1983 (age 42) Swansea, Wales
Height	1.67 m (5 ft 6 in)
Weight	58 kg (128 lb; 9 st)
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Major wins
UCI Women's Road World Cup Overall (2003, 2006) La Flèche Wallonne Féminine (2003, 2005, 2006) Amstel Gold Race (2003) GP Castilla y Leon (2006) Geelong World Cup (2007) Tour of Flanders for Women (2007) GP de Plouay (2003) Stage Races Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale (2006, 2007) Giro d'Italia Femminile (2004) Thüringen Rundfahrt der Frauen (2006) Giro del Trentino Alto Adige-Südtirol (2009) Single-day races Olympic Games Road Race Champion (2008) World Road Race Champion (2008) Commonwealth Games Road Race Champion (2002) National Road Race Champion (1999, 2001–2009) National Cyclo-cross Champion (2001) GP de Wallonie (2005) T Mobile International (2004) Souvenir Magali Pache (2006)

Nicole Denise Cooke, who has an MBE award, was born on April 13, 1983. She is a Welsh former professional road bicycle racer. She won many big titles, including the Commonwealth, Olympic, and World road race championships. In 2008, she made history in Beijing. She was the first British woman to win an Olympic Gold medal in any cycling sport. Nicole Cooke stopped racing professionally on January 14, 2013, when she was 29 years old.

Early Life and Cycling Start

Nicole Cooke was born in Swansea, Wales. She grew up in a place called Wick, Vale of Glamorgan. She went to Brynteg Comprehensive School in Bridgend. There, she earned a special award for being the top academic student.

Nicole started cycling when she was 11. She joined the Cardiff Ajax Cycling Club. She is still a member there for life. At 16, she won her first major national title. She became the youngest rider to win the senior women's title. This was at the 1999 British National Road Race Championships.

When she was 17, she won another national title. She became the youngest to win the senior women's title. This was at the 2001 British National Cyclocross Championships. Later that year, she won her second senior women's road race title.

Nicole also won four junior world titles. She won the road race in 2000 in France. In 2001, she won three unique junior titles. These were in mountain bike, time trial, and road race. Because of these amazing wins, she received the 2001 Bidlake Memorial Prize. This award is for great achievements in British cycling.

Becoming a Professional Cyclist (2002–2007)

Nicole Cooke became a professional cyclist in 2002. She joined the Deia-Pragma-Colnago team. She moved to Italy and learned Italian.

In her first professional year, 2002, Nicole won races in different countries. She also won the road race at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. This was the first time Wales won a road cycling medal. During her first Tour de France, at age 19, she felt very tired. She was offered "medicines" to help, but she refused them.

Her team, Deia-Pragma-Colnago, did not pay her and some teammates. Before a big race, they even took her bike. But they gave it back after someone important called. Nicole was chosen as the second best sports person in Wales that year.

In 2003, Nicole joined a new team. She won many important races. These included La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, the Amstel Gold Race, and the GP de Plouay. She also became the champion of the 2003 UCI Women's Road World Cup. She was the youngest and first British person to win it. She also came third in the world road championship. She was named BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year. She had a few crashes that year, which caused her to miss some races.

In 2004, Nicole had knee surgery. After eight months, she won her fifth British title. The next month, she won the Giro d'Italia Femminile. She was the youngest and first British cyclist to win this big race. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she finished fifth in the road race.

In 2005, she won La Flèche Wallonne Féminine again. She also won other races like the GP Wallonie. She finished second in the UCI Road World Championships.

At the end of 2005, she joined a Swiss team. She moved to Lugano, Switzerland, where she still lives.

At the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Australia's team celebrates beating Nicole Cooke of Wales. Nicole was the defending champion but had to race alone. The Welsh team sent a full team for the men's race, but none of them finished.

In 2005, the Welsh Cycling Union decided to send a full team of six men to the 2006 Commonwealth Games. But they sent Nicole alone to defend her title. Nicole later said this showed unfair attitudes in the sport. In 2006, she broke her collarbone before the Games. Even with this injury and no team support, she won a bronze medal. She felt that the decision to send her alone made it harder for her to win.

On August 1, 2006, Nicole became the number one female road racer in the world. On September 3, 2006, she won the UCI Women's Road World Cup for the second time. She won three World Cup races that season. She also won the 2006 Grande Boucle, which is like the women's Tour de France. She won by over 6 minutes. She also came third in the World Road Race Championships.

In 2007, Nicole won the Geelong World Cup and the Ronde van Vlaanderen. These early wins helped her set a new record. She had the biggest lead over the second-ranked cyclist in the world. She also won the Trofeo Alfredo Binda again. A knee injury made her miss the end of the 2007 season. She even thought about quitting cycling because of it.

Olympic and World Champion (2008)

Nicole Cooke joined Team Halfords Bikehut in 2008. Her first win that year was the Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin. On June 28, she won her ninth national road race title. This was her eighth win in a row.

Nicole represented Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She won the gold medal in the Women's Road Race on August 10, 2008. This was the 200th gold medal for Great Britain in the Modern Olympic Games. It was also the first Olympic gold medal for a British woman in any cycling sport. And it was the first gold medal ever won by a British rider in any road cycling event. On the day before, none of the British men finished their race. This was also the first Olympic gold medal won by a Welsh woman in an individual event.

She became the first cyclist ever, male or female, to win both the road race World Champion title and an Olympic gold medal in the same year. This amazing race in Varese, Italy, lasted over 3 and a half hours. She won by sprinting ahead of Marianne Vos and Judith Arndt. She thanked her teammates for helping her catch up to the leaders.

Nicole Cooke wrote a book called Cycle for life. It was published in October 2008. The book shares her love for cycling. It gives advice to cyclists of all levels.

Later Career and Retirement (2009–2012)

Nicole Cooke wearing the British National Road Race Champion's jersey in the 2010 Flèche Wallonne Féminine. She won this race three times.

Nicole Cooke received an MBE award in 2009. She was also named "Female Athlete of the Year" by Transworld Sport. The Sunday Times also gave her their Sportswoman of the Year award.

In June 2009, Nicole won the Giro del Trentino title. She also won her tenth British National Road Race Championships title.

After her Vision1 Cycling Team struggled to find a sponsor, Nicole closed the team. This was because of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. She then joined an Italian team for 2011. That year, she won a stage in the Giro D'Italia. She also came fourth in the World Championships Road Race. In October, she won the GP Noosa in Australia.

In 2012, Nicole joined the Faren-Honda team. She won a stage in the Energiewacht Tour in the Netherlands. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she finished 31st in the road race. Her teammate, Lizzie Armitstead, won a silver medal.

Nicole Cooke announced she was stopping professional cycling on January 14, 2013. She was 29 years old. In her retirement speech, she talked about problems in professional cycling. She spoke about unfairness and differences between men's and women's cycling. She also mentioned issues with performance-enhancing drugs. Her speech was met with silence, then applause. One magazine even called her "The Anti-Lance Armstrong" because she spoke out so bravely.

After Cycling Career

In 2014, Nicole Cooke was studying for a business degree at Cardiff University. Her autobiography, The Breakaway, was published that summer. It received great reviews. One journalist called it a "compelling and salutary account." It was named The Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year in 2014.

Since retiring, Nicole has continued to speak out. She campaigns for fairness for women in sports. She also pushes for stronger rules against doping. In 2017, she spoke to a government committee. She said that information she gave about doping was not looked into. She also spoke about the unfair treatment she faced in sports. News articles reported her strong words against doping and sexism.

In 2018, Nicole appeared on a TV show called Christmas University Challenge. She represented Cardiff University with her team.

Major Results

Cyclo-cross

Mountain Bike

Road

See also

In Spanish: Nicole Cooke para niños