Anna Meares (born September 21, 1983 in BlackwaterQueensland) is an Australian track cyclist.
During the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, she won a gold medal, and set a new world record in the Women's 500 metre time trial of 33.952 seconds. Meares had to beat a new Olympic record set just minutes previously by the reigning World Record holder, Yonghua Jiang of China. (See Cycling at the 2004 Summer Olympics)
Meares made an astonishing come back from a very bad cycling accident at the World Cup in January 2008 when she broke her neck. But she fought her way back and qualified for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.[1] [2]
Meares also won a bronze medal in the Women's 200m Sprint event in Athens.
In May 2004 at the Time Trial World Titles in Melbourne Meares claimed the title of Women's World time trial champion, and won a silver for the sprint event. Also claimed first in the 2004 World Cup Time Trial in Sydney.
In 2002 Meares narrowly missed a bronze medal in the inaugural inclusion of the 500 metre time trial at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, while her older sister, Kerrie Meares won the gold medal in the event. She won a bronze medal in the sprint.
In 2001 Meares was awarded the Australian Junior Women's Track Cyclist of the Year.
Anna Meares started competitive cycling at the age of 11 in 1994, following her older sister Kerrie Meares into the sport. The family were inspired to take up competitive cycling by Kathy Watt winning a cycling gold medal at the 1994 Commonwealth Games. With the family living in the small Queensland coal-mining town of Middlemount, it was more than two hours drive to the nearest cycling track at Mackay for the girls to train.
Image Getty, Content Wikipedia
