Rebecca Twigg

Rebecca Twigg

Rebecca Twigg (1999)
To person
Date of birth	March 26, 1963
nation	United States
discipline	Track bike (endurance) / road
End of career	1997
Most important successes
Olympic games 1992 - Individual pursuit 1984 - road racing UCI track world championships 1982, 9184, 1985, 1987, 1993, 1995 - One Pursuit
Last updated: November 4, 2019

Rebecca Twigg (born March 26, 1963 in Seattle ) is a former American cyclist who successfully competed on track and road . She won two Olympic medals and was world champion six times.

Athletic career

Rebecca Twigg was one of the most successful American cyclists. Her career spanned nearly two decades, from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, with a break from 1987 to 1991.

The gifted Rebecca Twigg attended university at the age of 14. Since she felt uncomfortable there, she turned to cycling on the advice of her mother to strengthen her self-confidence. At the age of 18, she became the US road champion for the first time, after having won four junior titles on track and road. In total, she won 16 US championship titles. She won the domestic road race "Women's Challenge" three times in a row (1984–86).

On the track, Rebecca Twigg was six times world champion in the single pursuit (1982, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1993 and 1995); she set a new world record three times. When street racing for women was added to the Olympic program, she turned to that discipline as well. Rebecca Twigg took part in the Olympic Games three times ( 1984 , 1992 and 1996 ). In 1984, at the Los Angeles Games, she was narrowly beaten by compatriot Connie Carpenter-Phinney . Twigg later admitted to having carried out blood doping before the race on the instructions of then national coach Edward Borysewicz like other drivers, which was not expressly prohibited at the time.

At the 1992 Barcelona Games, Rebecca Twigg won a bronze medal in the track pursuit. In the run-up to the Olympic track race in the individual time trial in Atlanta in 1996, there was a rift between her and the US team management after she was eliminated surprisingly early in the singles pursuit. Other reasons for the dispute were that Twigg did not want to ride the specially developed "SuperBike" and insisted on the accreditation of their exercise bike Edward Borysewicz. As a result, she stopped running. After she was only eighth at the UCI Track World Championships in 1997 , Rebecca Twigg resigned from active cycling.

Private and after sport

At the age of 16, Rebecca Twigg, who is described as "friendly" but "introverted", had to leave her parents' home under pressure from her mother. In the following time she did not have a home, but lived in hotels or with friends between races. In 1982 Edward Borysewicz offered her to live and train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs . At the age of 25, Twigg fell and sustained head injuries. She then decided to take a break from cycling and finish her IT studies. She then returned to the sport until 1997. She took up a job as a programmer but felt lonely, became increasingly depressed and suffered from anxiety disorders. She stopped working, became homeless, and has lived on the streets of her hometown of Seattle ever since; two marriages failed. She herself said in a newspaper interview in 2019 that a feeling of guilt prevented her from accepting help. She was given opportunities in her life that others would not have had. From 1986 she started under the marital name Rebeca Whitehead, which she dropped after her divorce.

successes

train 1981 American Champion - Single Pursuit 1982 World Champion - Single Pursuit American Champion - Single Pursuit 1984 World Champion - Single Pursuit American champion - sprint, 1000 meter time trial, single pursuit, points race 1985 World Champion - Single Pursuit 1986 World Championship - Individual Pursuit American Champion - Singles Pursuit, 1000 Meter Time Trial 1987 World Champion - Single Pursuit Pan American Game Winner - One Pursuit 1992 Olympic Games - One's Pursuit American Champion - Single Pursuit 1993 World Champion - Single Pursuit 1995 World Champion - Single Pursuit American Champion - Singles Pursuit, 1000 Meter Time Trial 1996 American Champion - Single Pursuit 1997 American Champion - Single Pursuit

Street 1982 American Champion - Individual Time Trial 1983 World Championship - Road Race American road racing champion 1984 Olympic Games - Road Racing 1987 Pan America Game Winner - Street Racing 1992 American Champion - Road Race, Criterion 1994 American Champion - Individual Time Trial

Web links and sources

• Rebecca Twigg in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Rebecca Twigg in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Sportsillustrated.CNN.com: "Free Wheeling" ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
2. ↑ Washingtonpost.com: "Best US Cyclist Quits Team" (English)
3. ^ Tereza Antonova: From Being America's Most Talented Cyclist to Being Homeless. - We Love Cycling magazine, October 2, 2019, accessed November 4, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Yves Tardent, Claudia Rey: Homeless Olympic champions, depressed world champions and other fallen top athletes. In: nzz.ch. April 19, 2019, accessed November 4, 2019 . 
5. ^ German Cycling Association of the GDR (ed.): The cyclist . No. 45/1987 . Berlin 1987, p. 6 .