Dani King is now 19 years old, which means that 2010 will be her first season as a fulltime cyclist. Dani has now signed to the new ladies team “Horizon Fitness Racing” led by Vision1’s previous manager Stefan Wyman.

View the latest news from Dani and the team on their blog

Dani’s broad goals for the season will be to finish on the podium in as many British races as possible and also force herself in to be a regular rider for Great Britain on the continent.

With this plan in mind she went off to Australia in January for 2 months winter training.  This has so far proved to have been very beneficial, not least of which as she was able to miss most of the freezing conditions during early 2010 when it would have proved almost impossible to have had regular hard training miles on the frozen English roads.

Since her return in March Dani has already competed on 5 different occasions for Great Britain, including the tough World Cup “Tour of Flanders” where she finished 13 minutes behind the winner to other road races in Belgium showing some fast improvement by finishing in the same time as the winner.

Belgium is where Dani’s basing herself most of the time as the quality and frequency of the racing is greater than that within the UK. 

In the longer term it remains Dani’s dream to become an Olympic and World Cycling Champion.  Unfortunately this has taken a blow recently when cycling’s governing body the ‘International Cycling Union’ announced that only 1 rider could compete per nation in the next Olympics.   This has come as a surprise and a blow for the individual cyclists and overall for Great Britian’s medal hopes for 2012.

Although GBR took 8 Gold medals at the last Olympics such is the depth in field in British cycling that these were also backed up by 6 Silver and Bronze medals in the same events.

This has realistically meant that for Dani, with the likes of Nicole Cooke, (World & Olympic Champion), Rebecca Romero (Olympic Gold medallist) Wendy Houvenhagel (Silver medal ) Emma Pooley (Olympic Silver medallist) Lizzie Armistead (European Champion) and Sharon Laws to name a few riders hoping to compete in their second Olympics it will be extremely tough for her to force her way in.

At just 19 years old now and the average competing Olympian being 26 yrs it’s probably more realistic that the “Rio De Jenairo” Olympics  in 2016 is more of an achievable target for Dani to reach. This won’t of course dampen her desire to upset the odds though!! Watch this space.

April 2010

Belgium
23/4  Dani was amongst 165 other elite women riders competing in a 120km road race finishing in 20th position overall, 55 seconds behind the Belgium winner.  
24/4  Dani was against another 163 riders this time competing over 135km.  She eventually finished within a large group in 23rd position with the same overall time as the winner.

May 2010

16/5  Dani rode her second national series race at Hillingdon, London yesterday winning after a sprint finish. (3 out of 3 wins now in the series)
Belgium
21/5  Dani finished 4th
22/5  Dani won the a 94km bunch sprint at Wodecq, bringing the total number of wins in May to 4 so far.

June 2010

14/6 Properpolder in the north of Belgium was the scene of the latest victory for Dani King and the Horizon Fitness Racing Team. Having already finished 3rd on Saturday, Dani was again in fine form winning a bunch sprint after some great team riding

18/6 Dani won the ladies 'Halfords Tour Series' race in Stoke

The first day sees riders heading west through superb countryside to the rugged Atlantic coast and the famed Ring of Kerry. Day two takes teams back to the stunning coastline featured in “Ryan’s Daughter”, crossing the Shannon and hugging the coast with its magnificent 700 ft high Cliffs of Moher, before spending an atmospheric night in wonderful Galway.  The final day takes teams south of Lough Derg and the run-in to Dublin

Elliotts have 3 teams entered for this Charity Challenge.  Further details of riders and how you can support them to follow shortly.

Danielle King is a 16 year old student at Hamble Sports College who has been chosen for the Olympic Development cycling squad and is fast making an impact in the sport having only started cycling in 2005.  She was previously a County swimming champion and was encouraged to change sport when her natural cycling ability was identified.

Dani has her sights set on the 2012 London Olympics and is very clear on her ambitions. “I want to be a World Champion and Olympic Gold medallist” and her training programme is already almost full-time.

With the help of Peter Hargroves Cycles, Elliotts have just given her a new training bike that mirrors the geometry of her track racing bike so it feels the same when she is both training and riding road events.  ‘ I just can’t wait to ride it’ said Dani as she was clearly delighted to receive it. Elliotts have also agreed to help fund her travel and accommodation costs which are growing with events most weekends in Newport, Manchester or abroad.

She is thrilled to have been selected to represent Great Britain in the junior European Track Championships in Germany in July where she will ride match sprint, 500m time trial and Kieran events. ‘ Dani has made excellent progress in only 9 months since joining the Olympic Development Sprint Team and she is now competing at a high level and thoroughly deserves her position in the team’ said Iain Dyer, Head Coach of the British Cycling Sprint Squad.

Go Dani….!