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Mountain Bike

Vera Carrara plans comeback, Olympic mountain bike gold

published 25 November 2009

Multiple World Champion on track aims for London, on the trails

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Italy's Vera Carrara at the track World Championships in 2006 (Image credit: Bettini Photo)

Italy's Vera Carrara is making a comeback to cycling with the goal of winning gold at the 2012 Olympics in London. She will not be competition on the track, where she is a two-time elite World Champion, but on the dirt trails in the mountain bike discipline.

"It's still a humble discipline, where it is easier to be in contact with a range of people, with the children. It's made for me," Carrara told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Carrara raced professional track rider from 2001 to 2008, winning gold medals in the points race at the 2005 and 2006 World Championships. She retired after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where she finished 14th in the points race.

"The motor exists, but I lack the technique," she continued. Italy's two-time Olympic mountain bike gold medallist "Paola Pezzo has already told me that she will advise me. I love challenges: there are two and a half years to go to London, I can do it."

She will work with the same trainer as Marco Pinotti and Noemi Cantele, Omar Beltran. She will teach young cyclists the same methods Beltran teaches, that it is possible to win without doping.

"I want to eliminate the culture of suspicion. Many times, ten minutes after I'd won a race, I would heard some bothersome statements that would not allow me to enjoy my moment."

Carrara will start in her first mountain bike race in January at South America's TransAndes Challenge. She will compete in the six-stage race over the Andes mountain range with Beltran.