Cycling puts former judo ace back on glory track

An understatement, of course. In reality, Jenny, tougher than the rest with a background in the sport that stretched way back to early childhood, was devastated. "It was a freak accident, I turned and ended up with a spiral fracture in the fibula, my lower leg," she adds.

Today, though, the bitter disappointment of missing the 2002 Games has been replaced with a fresh optimism that soon, fingers crossed, she may be given another chance to join Scotland's Commonwealth squad.

What's peculiar about this time around is that she'll be nowhere near a judo mat.

Instead the gutsy 27-year-old has swapped the sport she grew up perfecting, for one she's known for only three years. "I hadn't cycled since being on a BMX back when I was growing up in East Calder," laughs Jenny, now within touching distance of a place in the Scotland cycling team as one of their team sprint competitors. "But when I tried it, I loved it."

She's now one of the fastest women on two wheels in Scotland, competing in a sport that's dominated by the likes of fellow Edinburgh cyclist Sir Chris Hoy and England's Victoria Pendleton.

Yet just three years ago, she'd never even sat on a track bike. And while top-flight competitors from Team GB boast hi-tech carbon-fibre bikes worth thousands and train year-round indoors, Jenny makes do with a simple model that cost a couple of hundred quid and a training route that includes Portobello promenade.

Even more impressive, she fits it all in around a full-time job.

Yet still she's met the demanding criteria required to even be considered for the Games, and done it in a third of the time her coaches had predicted.

"When I first started I was told to sit down and think of what I wanted to achieve. I was thinking, okay, three years Commonwealth Games, then the Olympics.

"I was told that I'd be around five years developing then three or four years after that before I could get to top level. I thought 'No way! I'll just go and blast it and see what happens'," she says, laughing. "I really under-estimated how much it takes to be a good cyclist."

Jenny quit judo after the disappointment of missing the Manchester Games and decided to take a year out to concentrate on her university studies. She was still working on her fitness when the idea of becoming a high-level cyclist cropped up out of the blue.

"A conditioning coach I know had worked with sprint athletes and reckoned there was a possibility that I could cross over to cycling," explains Jenny, of Marionville Road.

"I told him I wasn't interested in all that malarky, I said I was just happy to finish my degree. But he kept on at me for months. Then he suddenly tore into me and said I was a potential talent and that I was wasting my time. I hate people saying that I'm wasting anything, so I said, 'okay, I'll try cycling'.

"The last cycling I'd done was on my old BMX. I'd never been on a track bike, I had to beg for Lycra to wear and chamois for underneath to stop my bum going numb.

"They threw me up on the track on this bike with no brakes and you have to learn that the only way to slow down is to pedal backwards and that if you don't pedal, the wheels don't turn.

"Suddenly you're cycling on what's almost a 45-degree angle, you have to keep at a certain speed just to get around. Slow down, you fall over."

"But it was real exhilaration," she adds. "I got off, my knuckles were white from holding on to the handlebars so tightly.

"There was so much speed that you have this huge rush and you instantly want to do it again."

Within six weeks of her first ride and while still learning the technical side of the sport - how to find the fastest line on the curved track is as much part of racing as pedalling quickly - Jenny was taking part in the British Track Championships.

There was no turning back, she was hooked.

These days she's a member of City of Edinburgh Racing Club, she trains six days a week, juggling sport around her full-time job at Standard Life in Lothian Road, an intense role working with the financial crime team unravelling cases of money laundering and potential frauds.

Much of her training is in the gym, developing the strength required to power her way through a sprint event. Training on the bike can take her anywhere from the velodrome at Meadowbank to, bizarrely, Portobello promenade or the roads around a science park in the shadow of the Pentlands.

"Meadowbank's only open to train at for six months of the year, and even then if there's the slightest drop of rain you can't go out because you end up just dropping off the track. Whoever decided to build an open-air velodrome in Scotland must have been mad!

"You can go, warm up, do one run, then it rains and you have to stop. Then you have to do the warm-up again - it's very frustrating because everything relies on the weather.

"There are times we end up on Portobello promenade where it's straight and there are no cars but that's hardly ideal - you can be sprinting along and suddenly a dog runs out in front of you.

"Or we'll head to the science park out past the ski slope at Hillend. It's closed to traffic at night, so we go there for some training. It's not quite in the same league as the training facilities that Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton enjoy."

On the plus side, those Team GB superstars have other things on their minds just now. The nation's cycling elite have pulled out of the Commonwealth Games to concentrate on preparing for the 2012 Olympics - which means a new generation of cycling stars suddenly have an improved shot at Commonwealth medal glory.

"The English would have been our main rivals," nods Jenny. "Them pulling out affects the competition. Now our sights are on the Australians who are world-record holders in our event."

She hopes to ride in the female team sprint with Dunfermline-based Charline Joiner, also a member of the City of Edinburgh Racing club and a student at Napier University. Both expect to find out tomorrow if they've been selected when the Commonwealth Games Scottish team is announced.

"Every training session I do now, I'm thinking about that one ride that could end up with a medal," says Jenny.

It's a huge turn around from just before the Games in 2002, when disaster struck on the judo mat. Jenny reflects: "I was upset that I had the opportunity to go to the Games in 2002 but because of a freak injury, I couldn't go. But then it's because of that that I have the chance to go now.

"I'm healthier and fitter now than I've ever been. And, if anything, it would make getting to Delhi this time even more special."

Flying the flag for Scotland on the world stage

JENNY Davis hopes to compete in the women's team sprint, racing alongside Dunfermline-based rider Charline Joiner.

The 22-year-old is also a member at City of Edinburgh Racing Club, and a student at Napier University. Her brother is Craig Joiner, a Scotland rugby union internationalist.

But the Scottish team's hopes of fielding the biggest name in cycling at the games - Sir Chris Hoy - were scuppered when he announced he would not compete in Delhi as the event clashed with preparation for a European Championship event which carries Olympic qualifying points.

England's Victoria Pendleton, who might have been expected to compete in the women's team sprint, has also pulled out for the same reason.