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Van Moorsel conquers anorexia to leaves Sydney as queen of women's cycling
= = SYDNEY, Sept 30 (AFP) - With three gold medals, a silver, and a world record in her pocket, Dutch cyclist Leontien van Moorsel is leaving Sydney as the new queen of women's cycling. She's also leaving with an impressive countrywoman as a peer - Dutch swimmer Inge de Bruijn, who notched up the same gold medal tally in the pool that van Moorsel managed on her bike. But van Moorsel's accomplishments in Sydney - capped with her gold in the women's individual time trial Saturday - goes far beyond her medal tally. Just being here at all is a remarkable achievement in itself. "If somebody would have said to me months ago that this would have happened I wouldn't have believed them," she told reporters Saturday. Physically and mentally broken by years of anorexia and unrelenting nerves, van Moorsel once was on the verge of death. A model who has posed for men's magazine Penthouse, van Moorsel suffered a physical breakdown six years ago after winning her second women's Tour de France and left the cycling world for a time as she struggled to put her life back together. After putting on too much weight in the off-season at some points early in her career, van Moorsel had driven herself almost to death by going radically in the other direction. She stuck to a strict diet and put herself through intense workouts after eating to burn off the few calories she ingested. But with the help of husband and coach Michael Zijlaard she eventually overcame her eating disorder and staged a victorious comeback at the 1998 world championships on her home soil in Valkenburg. Since then she's added another world championship - in 1999 in Verona. But there's no question the Sydney Games will serve as her crowning achievement. She'd like them to help make her an example to young women struggling with anorexia, van Moorsel said Saturday. Already work is underway on a film about her and, much as her male counterpart Lance Armstrong is proof that there is life after cancer, she wants to be proof that anorexia can be vanquished. "You have to be motivated and the way back is very difficult," she said. "But it is possible." Her resurgence has already served as an inspiration to some of her peers. "She's making a wonderful comeback," French legend Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli said after taking out bronze in Saturday's race. "She's taking her place in women's cycling history." Longo-Ciprelli has the right to be jealous - in Sydney, van Moorsel has eclipsed many of the 41-year-old Frenchwoman's remarkable achievements in some regards. She has established herself as the female cyclist to have won the most medals ever at a single Olympic Games and one of the few cyclists of any sex to have won three or more cycling golds since Marcus Hurley of the United States won four at the 1904 Games in St Louis. Longo-Ciprelli may have been to every Summer Olympics since women's cycling events were added in Los Angeles in 1984 and won four medals - one gold, two silver, and Saturday's bronze - but she has never cleaned up in the way van Moorsel has in Sydney. Longtime cycling observers argue comparisons aren't fair. Longo-Ciprelli has been plagued with bad luck and injuries at past Olympics and as a pioneer of women's cycling hasn't had the same choice of races as van Moorsel to race in (the women's time trial was first run in 1996, for example). Even van Moorsel resists comparisons to de Bruijn or other athletes, although she said living with de Bruijn in the athletes village during the first week of the Games helped her in her quest. "She stayed focused after winning two Olympic medals and I learned a lot from that," van Moorsel said. After winning the women's road race, the Dutchwoman said the key to her success in Sydney had been her ability to stay relaxed throughout her Olympic ride. She even hinted at a slightly cavalier attitude, promising after each of her gold medals to "party" and not worry about her next race. But she revealed Saturday that had all been a bit of a front. "After my first gold medal I said 'yeah, I go have a big party,'" she said. "But my husband Michael said it's only two weeks that you have to focus and you'll regret it the rest of the life (if you do party)." But she still insists part of the key to her success has been staying relaxed. After big wins, she said, she gives herself a rest day and makes a point of eating what she likes and going shopping. That rest day is going to get a little longer after Sydney. Van Moorsel said Saturday she would skip the world championship which begin in France in less than two weeks and instead "enjoy the medals I have". She also doesn't plan on competing in another Olympics. She has goals left to accomplish in cycling - she would like to break the world record for distance in an hour, considered by many the purest test of a cyclist. But there are personal goals too. She swears that at 30 she only has two more years of cycling left and she eventually wants to have children. That would mean that unlike Longo-Ciprelli, who is still competing in Sydney at age 41 and won gold in Atlanta at 37, van Moorsel would retire at 32.
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