Team GB's Anna Henderson joins Orla Chennaoui, Joanna Rowsell and Nile Wilson on 'Bonjour Paris' with her 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙣𝙚𝙬 silver medal 🥈✨ #Paris2024
"I’ve really outdone myself here" - Anna Henderson takes emotional silver medal in time trial of 2024 Paris Olympic Games
CyclingSunday, 28 July 2024 at 13:00
The women's time trial at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games was raced out in dreadfully wet conditions, with the slippery roads causing a number of riders to crash. For Great Britain's Anna Henderson however, the weather was no issue as the 25-year-old secured a silver medal on Olympic debut.
"I was just so focussed on the plan yesterday. None of it really got to me because I was so nervous and focussed on doing my plan and the strategy and the plan that me and the team had made together," reflected the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider in conversation with Eurosport afterwards. “I kind of knew we’d adapted the plan a little bit for the weather and then I just had to go out there and do it. We just really focussed on controlling the corners."
“You really feel stupid when you’re on a 28, 29 millimetre tyre and you’re trying to go around slippery city roads," continues Henderson, who eventually finished 2nd, 1:31 down on the gold medal winner Grace Brown and just 1 second ahead of bronze medallist Chloe Dygert.
“I didn’t actually realise how bad the weather conditions were until I finished and I realised a lot of the girls had problems and then I watched the guys race and every corner I was nervous," she admits. “Then I realised what my team must have felt like in the car, and how my family must have felt watching. And I thought, ‘OK, I’m glad I’m done now and I can hold my medal upright'. I had one scare like five kilometres in, and I thought, ‘No, no, no. You’re not going to waste this form, hard work. You can lose a whole Olympic Games in one corner. But you can gain everything everywhere else'.”
Grace Brown secured Olympic gold for Australia
After a broken collarbone in early February, Henderson's Olympic hopes had looked in doubt but the Brit continued to work hard and has now been fully rewarded. “It’s been a super surreal feeling, even to come to Paris was surreal,” she relfects. “You’re watching all these people on TV and then you’re in the same team and then to medal, it’s surreal. I had a dream that maybe if all the stars aligned I could make the podium, like the bronze medal, but silver I thought, ‘Woah, I’ve really outdone myself here’. Especially finishing behind someone like Grace Brown, who is an unreal athlete."
"It’s been a really rough year, I had two broken collarbones and then I was sick a month ago and I thought, ‘This is really not my year’. I can’t believe it," Henderson concludes. “But I worked hard, kept the motivation to come to Paris, it was my big goal all year. I can’t believe I’m sat here talking to you, to be honest.”
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