Now Lizzie wants to be hot in Cali

4:54pm Wednesday 5th November 2008

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Lizzie Armitstead may have been jealous of the cyclists who struck gold in Beijing.

But the 19-year-old from Otley probably made many other riders envious when she won three races in the Manchester leg of the World Cup last weekend.

Armistead led home an all-British 1-2-3 in the points race final on Friday and to that she added golds in the scratch race on Saturday and the team pursuit on Sunday.

Armitstead, who last year was splitting cycling with her studies at Prince Henry’s Grammar School, spent most of 2007 recovering from a stress fracture in her lower back and missed out on selection for Beijing.

But she has made up for lost time this autumn, helping Nicole Cooke to win gold at the road race World Championships, winning the Amsterdam Six-Day event last week then upstaging some of the Beijing heroes in Manchester.

Asked for her reaction to her points victory, she said: “I’ve put an awful lot of work into getting here and this is my first senior track medal.”

Despite her young age, Armitstead bossed a race containing many riders with much more experience."

She added: “I’ve let them intimidate me in the past – the big girls – but here I didn’t let them push me around.”

The Otley teenager may be in her rookie year but she is already talking like a seasoned professional. She said: “In terms of women’s bunch racing, I’ve been quite lucky there was no-one ahead of me and now I’ve got younger girls pushing me (Katie Colclough is 18) and having more girls to train with is fantastic.”

Armitstead will spend next year concentrating on road racing having signed up with a Belgian team.

Before then she will head for the World Cups in Melbourne and Cali, Colombia.

“My end of season is just getting better so hopefully the form will keep coming,” she added.

Rawdon’s Anna Blyth, 20, capped a great weekend for West Yorkshire by combining with 17-year-old Jess Var-nish to take gold in the team sprint.