We will miss you Jennie! She is a true American track legend. (Interview courtesy of RadSprint.com)
Jennie Reed was among the international top sprinters for more then a decade, consistently being on the podium in the UCI World Cup competitions. In 2008 she eventually won her well deserved rainbow jersey in the Keirin and also adding a World Championship bronze medal in the match sprint to her collection. Now, Jennie has decided to retire and RadSprint is talking with her about her long and successful career.RadSprint: 2008 was your best year ever. Congratulations! After Beijing the world didn't hear much from you and now we learned that you have decided to retire. What was behind this decision?
Jennie: First of all, Thanks! 2008 was by far one my most accomplished years and also the most enjoyable. Funny this is, I was about to retire at the end of 2007, when Andy Sparks and Sarah Hammer motivated me to attend a women's team pursuit camp. I had so much fun doing something different and it turned in to working with Andy. It really just all fell in to place last year with Howard Marans sponsoring Momentum Cycling and having the right set up for training. I was enjoying myself more than ever racing, but I just had the feeling inside that when the year was over, I would be done. I always wondered if I would get that gut feeling about when to retire, and I did, and listened to it. I felt like I had experienced everything that I wanted to in sport and I was no longer inspired to do it again. I really was ready for new experiences in life. It was a great way to end on such an incredible year though.
RadSprint: Let's talk some more about 2008. Tell us about the World Championships and how you achieved your biggest success. You had already great form in January and February - winning silver medals at the world cups in Los Angeles in Copenhagen. How did you manage to get in even better shape for worlds? Jennie: You know I had a lot of people around me that were tremendously supportive and believed in what I could achieve. In fact, I get emotional thinking about it because remembering back to some training sessions, my coach Andy Sparks and his fiancé Sarah Hammer would start talking about how I was just going to smash everyone and Win Worlds!
It took me a while to really believe it and go for it. It really came together for me the last year and a half. I tried some new things in training that I had never done before. My strength since I was 18 was getting up to top speed and holding on and I just really trained that the last year. I was so motivated in training that it seemed easy at times. I had such an awesome training group. I just thrived on the energy that was in the track from Sarah, Dotsie, Andy and Dr. Kay (OUCH Team sponsor). The momentum carried throughout the year and I just got stronger and faster as the training continued. By the time Worlds came around, I was riding bigger gears and I was really clear in my head. I wasn't scared of losing. Instead, I was in the moment and ready to challenge myself to see what I could do. I never felt so good and supported in my whole career as I did at the Worlds.
RadSprint: Next stop were the Olympic Games. Unfortunately the "mask incident" created the most press for the US track cycling team. Eventually USOC chief of sport performance Steve Roush lost his job over the affair. Now more than half a year later, how do you reflect on the whole story?
Jennie: I still see it as just a "crazy" incident that happened. It really took me a while just to realize what it was that the USOC was upset about! It kind of came up on me and hit me in the side of the head and I didn't see it coming or understand what was going on. I was trying to have the best performance and was told that wearing the mask would help prevent me from getting sick. It got really blown out of proportion. I was really disappointed that no one supported us during the incident. USA Cycling hid behind USOC like a little kid getting punished and it was embarrassing frankly. It's one of those things where they tell you that you didn't do anything wrong, but they won't speak up for you or support you. It really made me view the Olympic Games differently. It made me feel that it is more about politics than about sport.
RadSprint: Had all of this an impact on the racing at the Games?
Jennie: As most people know, so many things can impact performance and of course it affected me. It's always a question of how much. The initial stress was hard but what really affected me was the lack of team after the incident. I felt that everyone sort of went in to survival mode and either formed opinions about it or just didn't know what to do, but the team feeling was gone. It wasn't a good formula for my success and I ended up getting a bad respiratory infection. I've always been a very resilient person and I still enjoyed myself though. I gave it the best I knew how and was proud considering the circumstance.
RadSprint: Any good memories of Beijing?
Jennie: The memories that really stand out are the friendships I formed with other athletes. I met some great people that I will be friends with for a lifetime.
RadSprint: How did Beijing compare to Athens, your first Olympic Games?
Jennie: I think my first Olympics will always be the most special. I had some difficult years leading in to Athens. I was training in Europe and was struggling to find any form and didn't feel a lot of support from people. I finally believed in what I knew and listened to myself, regardless of what everyone else's opinions where. I learned a lot about myself that year. I knew that if I wanted to make it to the Olympics, I was the only one that could make that happen.
RadSprint: But let's have a look at the beginning. When did you start cycling and racing? And how did you arrive at the track?
Jennie: I started racing two weeks before my 16th Birthday. My dad had started cycling for recreation and he introduced my sister, Laura and I to it. One of the first times, my dad asked my sister and I to go for a ride with him which was to ride 60 miles up to our ski cabin! I wasn't going to have any part of that but my sister, Laura, went. She started to get in to racing and would beg me to go training with her. I finally caved in and went but I still didn't like it that much. It wasn't until I did a mountain bike race and won a "free certificate" to a track class that I was hooked! I always did better at the shorter distances, so I loved the track. From then on, I started racing and qualified for the Junior Worlds. I was only going to do it on the junior level, until I got a phone call from Andrzej Bek (National Sprint Coach at the time). He said he saw me at the Juniors and thought I should be a sprinter and join the National Team! It all started because of that.
RadSprint: You had your first success as in elite sprinter in 1998/99 on the national and international level. 2000 and 2001 you didn't have much on your palmares. These were also the years of Tammy Thomas, who tested positive for the anabolic norbolethone in the 2002/03 season, was banned for life and was later convicted of perjury. What's your take of all of this from today's perspective?
Jennie: I actually got fourth place at the World Championships in 2000, but since they were after the Olympics, I don't think people would remember. I wasn't selected for Olympics in 2000, but I did have a great year. In fact I set my personal record in the 200m in 11.10 sec that year! Tammy was around those years and I remember being told by a coach that "the US had their female sprinters already." I did affect me not being selected for all of the World Cups and such, but really she didn't affect my ability to perform. It was unfortunate what decisions she made because she was a really nice person, but it was frustrating for me to see her do so well in 2001, taking the silver medal at the Worlds. I had been working so hard and I actually told her straight after she got the medal that I didn't respect her medal! I've always been straight forward I guess.
RadSprint: After that, let's lighten up a bit. Tell us some funny stories and about some embarrassing moments!
Jennie: Geez, that's probably not too hard to do because I seem to do that a lot! The all time funniest story is back in 1999. We had done a World Cup in Italy or something and then on the way home we got stuck in Brussels. We were going to have to spend the night cause there was only one flight at 6pm daily. We had already been through quite a bit, trying to find connections, so the team was going to get a bus to a nearby hotel. Well, I was really hungry and decided to get a bite to eat in the airport with my teammate Marcelo. Andrzej Bek was the coach and he said, "Fine, if you want to do that then you'll have to find your way to the hotel if the bus comes while you're not here." I agreed and said not a problem, but when the time came and I wasn't there by the time the bus was there, Andrzej was "furious!" Marcello was scared and Andrzej blew up on us. He started turning red and yelling about how, 'he didn't care if we hadn't slept for one week or eaten for one week or taken "shit" for one week, that we shouldn’t leave the group! I lost it when he said the last thing and I started laughing so hard I couldn't control it and I fell to the ground, still laughing! Marcello said he thought he saw steam coming from Andrzej! Marcelo just told me that he was soo glad it was me laughing and not him! We still joke about that today!
Another embarrassing moment was in 2000. I was racing a World Cup in Mexico and was riding in the Bronze medal match against Aussie Michelle Ferris. The race was important for Olympic selection and therefore I really wanted to beat her. I had never beat her before and won the first match. In the second one I was going down the back straight and wanted it so bad that I got out of the saddle and was just giving it and when I sat down I put my whole body in to it. As I was sitting down I hit my forehead on my stem and I almost took myself out! My helmet was straight back on my head, but I didn't care cause I won! It was soo embarrassing though!
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