Australian on her late but rapid rise to the highest level
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Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS) sprays champagne in celebration over her overall victory(Image credit: Con Chronis)
Orica-AIS surround their overall leader Katrin Garfoot on the last stage of the Santos Women's Tour(Image credit: Con Chronis)
Stage 1 winner Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS)(Image credit: Con Chronis)
Winners are grinners Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS)(Image credit: Con Chronis)
Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS) celebrates victory(Image credit: Con Chronis)
Perhaps Katrin Garfoot’s story should serve as a lesson to teenagers the world over to pay heed to good advice. When Garfoot was told as an aspiring track and field athlete in her native Germany that she had the physiological profile to shine in another discipline altogether, her reaction was to shrug her shoulders.
“I was told I’d probably be a good cyclist when I was 16 or so, but people tell you weird stuff when you’re 16 anyway,” Garfoot told Cyclingnews at the Ladies Tour of Qatar. “I didn’t see myself racing bikes ever.”
Some 18 years later, and now representing her adopted country of Australia, Garfoot is set to line out at the Rio 2016 Olympics as one of the medal contenders in the individual time trial. Her story is all the more remarkable given that she only began racing in 2011, three years after moving Down Under with her Australian husband.
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Barry Ryan was Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.
