A Ripon Grammar School student has been selected to compete in next year’s BMX cycling world championships.

Elite Cruiser rider Jodie Musgrove, ranked number four in the UK, is now preparing to represent Team GB in Nantes, France.

The 16-year-old, who plans to study veterinary medicine at university, has been riding since she was 11 years old, having taken up the sport after watching her first race with her father James, a former BMX rider.

For the past five years, she has been competing at the highest level, travelling all over the UK to race:

She said:

“Getting into the world championships is a dream I have had since I started, and it’s fantastic to see all my hard work and training at last paying off.”

Jodie in action

Jodie now hopes she can make an impact at the 2022 contest, where the world’s top riders will be coming together to compete between July 26 and 31.

Her inspiration is gold medallist Beth Shriever, who became Britain’s first BMX racing Olympic champion in Tokyo this summer.

It was the adrenaline rush of off-road dirt racing which first got Jodie hooked on the sport:

She pointed out:

“Most sprint races last no longer than a minute, on purpose-built off-road, single-lap racetracks, made up of various jumps and rollers. So, it’s a very fast-paced, high-intensity sport.”

It can also be dangerous, with one crash in Manchester in 2018 resulting in Jodie needing stitches for a gash in her arm, knocking her out of racing for six weeks.

Jodie took on top competitors all over the UK in a challenging series of races throughout the year to qualify for the world championships on her 24-inch wheel, large-framed cruiser bike, taking the final Team GB spot in the 17 to 29-year-old female category.

Studying for A-levels in maths, chemistry, biology and psychology, she says she enjoys being a part of the BMX community, training with the North-East BMX Club in Hartlepool and travelling to Manchester’s indoor racing track at weekends in winter.

In addition to bringing back medals from Nantes, her ambition is to qualify for the World Championships again in 2023 in Glasgow and hopes she might get the chance to compete at the Olympics one day.

Olympic cyclist Lizzie Deignan, who has made Harrogate her home, will take to the road tomorrow morning to race for Team GB.

The 33-year-old is known for growing up in Otley but since moving to Harrogate after her wedding in 2016, she has fallen back in love with the town she remembers as a child.

Ms Deignan will represent her country in the road race at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics tomorrow.

The 137km race, snaking from Tokyo’s Musashinonomori Park to the Fuji International Speedway but not climbing Mt Fuji itself, will begin at 5am UK time.

At the London 2012 Olympics she won silver in the road race, claiming the first medal for Team GB that year.

She also competed on the district’s roads during the Tour de Yorkshire in 2017 and the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in 2019.

When did you start cycling?

I didn’t really grow up in a cycling family, though we were certainly active and I took part in every sport at school. Cycling found me when I was 15. British Cycling came to my school with some bikes to try to find potential cyclists as part of a talent ID programme ahead of London 2012. I was happy to skip a maths lesson to give it a try and managed to beat the boys and the coaches must have seen something in me and the rest, as they say, is history.

What are your aspirations for the Tokyo Olympics?

I’m really excited to head to Tokyo, though it will obviously be a very different Olympics to previous games in the current situation. The last Olympics, I was kind of going there as one of the favourites; I was thinking about the Olympics probably every 10 minutes of every day in the lead up. But this time, life is a bit fuller with my daughter and other stuff going on. I can go a day or two without it being on my mind. Then I suddenly catch myself and think, “Ah, I’m approaching this differently”. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I’m just a bit more relaxed.

Lizzie Deignan posted a photo of her and two Olympic teammates training this week. Photograph: @l-deignan

How long have you been living in Harrogate?

My husband and I made Harrogate our home after we got married a few years ago and we love it. Sadly, we don’t get to spend as much time at home as we would like, as I spend most of my time travelling to race or train overseas and we have a base in Monaco, too.

You’re known as an Otley person, do you have any other connections to Harrogate?

Harrogate is somewhere that we visited as a family so I have happy memories from childhood. As an adult it was a fantastic opportunity to compete on home roads when Harrogate hosted the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in 2019. The support from the crowds was fantastic – despite the weather! It was also very special to win a stage of the Tour of Yorkshire finishing in Harrogate back in 2017.

What is your favourite cycling route around the district?

I’m not sure I have a favourite, but there are plenty of places I like cycling around the area, including to Lofthouse and Leyburn. There is a route out that way that is quite challenging and takes in some of the World Championships route. I love the quiet lanes along the Nidd on the way back from Leyburn and there are lots of nice cafes to choose from in Masham when you are within an hour from home.

How will the course in Tokyo compare with the terrain around Harrogate and Otley?  

Nothing compares to Yorkshire roads! The climbs are very different and the terrain is less rolling than home roads, which are just brutal, but the biggest change will be the conditions as it will be so hot and humid in Tokyo. It has required plenty of heat chamber training to make sure I’m prepared.

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There are a lot of keen cyclists in the area. Do you often get noticed when you pass them on training rides?

When I’m at home I often take the opportunity to ride with friends and family and enjoy seeing people I know on home roads.

Where is your favourite place to visit in and around Harrogate?

I have fond memories of Valley Gardens and nearby I would say Bolton Abbey, where my husband Phil and I had our wedding reception.

With the Tokyo games now underway, a portrait of Olympic gold medallist diver Jack Laugher is providing inspiration to Ripon Grammar School students.

The former RGS pupil became an Olympic champion alongside partner Chris Mears at Rio 2016, when the duo made history in three-metre springboard synchronised diving.

Having become, with Mears, the first GB Olympic divers to win gold, he went on to take silver in the men’s individual three-metre springboard competition.

The painting by artist and RGS parent Fiona Scott, which features Jack holding his medals from Rio, now has pride of place at the school.

The school, along with sports fans across Great Britain, will be cheering him on as he competes in Tokyo.

An inspirational painting – artist Fiona Scott (right) with, from the left: RGS headmaster Jonathan Webb, Dan Brown and Eliza Polito

The synchronised event will be broadcast live on the BBC on Wednesday morning (7am UK time).

The individual event begins with the preliminary round at 7am UK time on August 2, with the semi-final and final respectively starting at 2am and 7am UK time, on 3 August.

Headmaster Jonathan Webb is thrilled to have the stunning oil painting of the Olympic gold medal winner hanging in school, particularly as it was installed just before the games. He said:

“Students and staff are all very excited and we’ll all be willing him on.”

Ms Scott, who arranged a sitting with Laugher at Leeds Aquatics Centre, said he was delighted to hear the painting was now on show at his old school.

Keen swimmer Darcy Harper was among the students who met the sporting hero when he returned to RGS to present prizes to pupils three years ago.

The 15-year-old, who has competed in national schools finals, said:

“I found it inspiring to hear his story and how far he’s come.”

Laugher, who left RGS in 2013, has also inspired Dan Brown, who has represented RGS in county swimming championships, athletics and tennis.

Read more:

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The 14-year-old, who is aiming for a career in sport, said:

“He has shown how it’s possible to combine a professional sporting career while managing his schoolwork, which I really admire.”

Eliza Polito, a 14-year-old swimmer and runner, added:

“I think it’s so cool to know that Jack Laugher came to this school and has gone on to achieve so much.”

Artist Ms Scott’s daughter Lily Wainwright is a Year 10 boarding student, whose two older brothers also studied at RGS.

The Laugher painting was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters‘ annual exhibition in London in May last year before the exhibition was cancelled due to covid.

Cyclist Lizzie Deignan, who has homes in Harrogate and Otley, has been picked to represent Team GB at the Tokyo Olympics this summer.

Ms Deignan, 32, who won a silver medal at the London 2012 Olympics and was the world road race champion in 2015, was named in British Cycling’s 26-person Olympic team this week.

She will represent her country in the road race at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which are due to take place from July 23 to August 8.

Ms Deignan, nee Armitstead, becomes the third Harrogate district person selected for the Olympics, along with Ripon diver Jack Laugher and US-based Harrogate footballer Rachel Daly.

She told her 95,000 Instagram followers:

“It’s official. I have been selected to represent Great Britain in Tokyo at my third Olympic Games. If Phil West didn’t come to my school when I was 15 to look for kids with talent my life would have been so different, I didn’t even own a bike, it’s still a bit surreal. Tokyo here we come.”

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In the golden glow of Olympic glory, Jack Laugher told BBC television viewers that his favourite place in the world is “back home in Littlethorpe”.

For those who know him best, that came as no surprise.

The sporting role model has never forgotten his roots in the Ripon area and he continues to give back to the community where he was raised.

In the same week that he heard he had been selected for the GB’s Tokyo Olympic team, Jack agreed to sponsor the Roosters – Ripon’s newest netball team.

His mother Jackie, who will play in the a team for players aged 50 and above, told the Stray Ferret:

“While achieving so much in his sport, Jack has always been a loving son, supportive of what I’m doing.

“He takes as much interest in my membership of Ripon City Netball Club, as I do in his membership of the GB Olympic team.”

In addition to his Olympic gold and silver, Jack was a multiple medallist at the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games. He is pictured here with Sylvia Grice.

A Transdev 36 double-decker bus is named in his honour and a bench installed by Littlethorpe Parish Council bears his name.

He was also one of six GB Olympic competitors supported by ALDI whose shoppers in Ripon and across the country could see his face on posters.

Jack’s history-making performance with diving partner Chris Mears meant the pair became Britain’s first Olympic diving gold medallists.

Jack in action at this year’s European Aquatics Championships, where he won silver. Picture: British Swimming

Jack’s mother Jackie and her best friend Helen Mackenzie were at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre in Rio to witness the winning springboard-propelled synchronised twists and turns, which denied the China team a clean sweep of the 2016 Olympic diving golds.

Back in the UK, a third woman shared in this triangle of triumph, watching on television in the lounge of her Littlethorpe home.

Sylvia Grice, who was made an MBE for teaching an estimated 250,000 children how to swim, saw her former water babe become an Olympic champion.

Jack, who started with his first splash at Ripon’s Spa Baths when he was three, now had gold around his neck.

Sylvia pointed out:

“Even at that age, he had the confidence and control to swim under water and that proved to be a good omen.”

A week later, Jack added silver in the men’s individual three-metre springboard event, becoming the first British diver to win multiple medals at an Olympic games.

Helen, who is Sylvia’s daughter and has followed in her mother’s slipstream as a swimming teacher, also teaches PE at Ripon Grammar School, where Jack’s academic and sporting prowess was developed.

She will also join the new Roosters netball team, and said:

“Jack is such a special person – a giver, not a taker.

“After donating a buddies bench to Ripon Cathedral School, he turned up at his old primary in his GB Olympic kit to present sports day prizes, pose with children and parents for photographs and sign autographs.”

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