Was it really just 24 months since Nicole Cooke was on BBC's Sports Personality of the Year, shoved up the back with the no-hopers, no promotional video, and being patronised by moon-faced professional Brummie Adrian Chiles?
Last night she was centre stage, glamorous and confident with the rest of Team GB's all-conquering cyclists on a night that utterly belonged to them.
The BBC did its best to disadvantage the team -- forcing them to cycle down an improbably steep ramp and make right angled turns through the seated throng, but they carried it off well. Not sure whether Chris Hoy's rear-wheel skid on to the stage was deliberate or whether he was genuinely trying to take out jug-eared potato snack salesman and part-time "personality" Gary Lineker. If he'd succeeded, it would only have made Hoy's thousands of Scottish fans cheer even louder.
The whole team acquitted themselves superbly -- modest, articulate and well-presented, especially Victoria Pendleton, (the memory of her in a Little Black Dress will keep many old cyclists warm throughout the coming winter nights.)
All except for Bradley Wiggins - who looked like a madman who'd managed to get hold of a Team GB kit and wandered on set by mistake. That is, of course, one of the many reasons we all love Bradley.
Given his remarks about failing to capitalise on success after Athens, it's good to see him making a few bob appearing in the John Lewis Xmas adverts (see picture above). Let's hope that keeps him off the laughing water until 2012.
So who would have thought it? Cyclists are suddenly taken to the nation's hearts. Enjoy it while it lasts. You know that pretty soon we'll be back where we belong -- derided as a bunch of red-light running drugged-up lycra louts.
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