Another Olympics for Longo

After signing with Austrian team Uniqa for 2007, Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli has set herself a new, historical goal: the 48 year-old French cyclist wants to compete in the Olympics Games in Beijing in 2008. This would be the seventh Olympics she attends.

"Racing in Beijing is not unrealistic to me if I keep my good shape," Longo told the Dauphiné Libéré newspaper on Friday. "I will train the coming two years for the Games. However, when you're close to your fifties, the parameters can change a lot from one year to another."

If Longo attains her 2008 goal, she will be the only female cyclist to heave attended the Olympics every time since women's cycling was first admitted at the event, in 1984. This week, the triple Olympic medallist moreover received a motivation boost as a reader poll launched by L'Equipe magazine placed her on rank four amongst "France's preferred sports people" - just behind swimmer Laure Manaudou, footballer Thierry Henry and tennis woman Amélie Mauresmo.

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"This is awesome," she commented. "People don't talk about me a lot, I don't make a lot of headlines. I think that the exaggerated media coverage of some sports people gets on the public's nerves. This poll shows the simple man's recognition of what I do and that makes me very happy."