Top cyclist gives Crown pupils a boost with her ‘fantastic talk'
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CHILDREN at Crown Primary School enjoyed an inspiring talk from a top Highland sportswoman recently.
Champion cyclist Lee Craigie is a seasoned mountain biker and road athlete who competed for Scotland in the 2014 Commonwealth Games and was also the fastest female to complete the Etape Loch Ness in 2015 and 2016.
Also last year she and six fellow elite female cyclists set themselves the challenge of cycling the NC500 in less than 36 hours, successfully smashing the previous record.
Since then she has set up the Adventure Syndicate, a collective of cyclists aiming to encourage others to challenge what they think they are capable of.
She met children from P5-7 classes at the Inverness school recently and, according to headteacher Miriam MacDonald, left her whole audience feeling truly inspired.
“It was just fantastic,” she said.
“She spoke very modestly about her own achievements but much more about how, when she was at school, she often felt like she didn’t really fit in.
“Rather than allowing that to stop her in any way though she just carried on doing what she was passionate about.
“It was very moving for everyone who was there and fits in very well with what all that we want our pupils to believe for themselves.”
To show their appreciation for Lee and her visit pupils at Crown Primary are now preparing to support her all the way in what could be her toughest challenge to date.
Lee is currently preparing to take part in the Tour Divide cycle race from Mexico to Canada which starts on June 9.
Billed as arguably the world’s toughest off-road bike race it covers 2745 miles in total.
And Crown pupils are planning to collectively match her distance mile for mile.
Ms MacDonald said: “Lee talked about how when she does a long distance ride like that, she is really all on her own, but she gets through it because she carries the thoughts of all the people that are important to her.
“Hopefully the fact that we will be doing this and thinking about her back here when she is on her ride will help to give her a bit of a boost and keep her going.”
