Track Cycling Quotes

Elimination race is my thing. I really enjoy that event.

I'm not just a time triallist any more.

At the end of the day, I'm riding a little kid's bike around a track; that's what I've done for as long as I can remember. Now it's just on a bigger stage at the Olympics.

I checked on the Internet this morning, and I realized that with five individual world titles, I was level with my elders Florian Rousseau and Arnaud Tournant, who were the sprint leaders in France when I started at the French Institute of Sports and taught me everything. I had the chance to overtake them, and I did it.

I started as a road cyclist and did all types apart from BMX. I started doing a lot of competitions, and then my dad suggested I tried the track. At first the thought of falling is scary, but you realise soon that if you go fast enough, you'll be fine. I realised it was more than a hobby when I was 16.

Cycling is unique in that in any other sport I'd be in a different weight category or discipline. What I do is a different sport to what Chris Froome does.

Track and road cycling are very different things. It is easy to look at them both as cycling but going from the road to the track is like asking Andy Murray to play squash: yes, it's a racket sport like tennis, but it's not the same.

My big objective this season is to win three gold medals at the Olympics, in the road race, the time trial and the points race.

In tennis, you can have a bad set and still win. The part of track cycling that is difficult to find in other sports is that it's so final; there's no second chance if you make a mistake.

I don't know why, but despite winning how many world championships, how many Tour stages, and being 31 years old, some people still thought I had to prove myself, you know. So I had to do the Track Worlds to try to prove myself.

The Marianne Vos Route goes through the seven villages of Aalburg, where I grew up, and celebrates my World and Olympic titles with a number of benches along the route, where you can stop and rest your legs. You'll see the white windmill in Meeuwen and, in Babylonienbroek, a statue of the silver bike I rode to celebrate my Olympic track win.

I get asked to comment a lot on inequality in cycling, but for me it has never been an issue. Everything has always been equal on the track, and the male and female riders are all part of the same team, and we all mix freely.