Having won gold in the TT at the Masters Road Championships in the past, Hazel Smyth popped up again last weekend in Co Monaghan to take her third title in four years. She knocked it out of the park. Her time would have secured bronze in the men's Masters 40 TT.
On paper, while a great performance, there was nothing remarkable about it. You'd expect her to win again. But this victory was very different. Smyth has just beaten cancer, which started in her tongue and then spread to her neck. She's been through an ordeal, to say the least.
When the first surgery to have small tumours in her tongue removed fell short, the surgeons had to go again. And after going under the knife for a second time, she needed 40 stitches down her throat. All of this has unfolded in the last year. It is little wonder, then, she was so overwhelmed at the championships on Saturday, with tears flowing. She was thrilled to win. But, mostly, she was just glad to be alive and still able to race her bike.
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"The second surgery was a major blow because the cancer had been classed as 'stage 1' and then they classed it as 'stage 4', it was in multiple lymph nodes," she tells stickybottle. "So that was the lowest point. I thought 'I'm dying here'. I'm thinking 'where else is this?'... it was weeks of trauma. That was frightening, totally frightening."
Marathoning, policing then cycling
From Dromara, Co Down, Smyth worked as a police constable, then sergeant, in Scotland, for 20 years before coming back to the North in 2023. A marathon runner for years, she had a personal best of 3:07 and was ranked fifth best in Northern Ireland for a time.
But Achilles injuries eventually ended her running career and she took up cycling. A hatful of Ulster and National TT titles followed; the marathon runner's engine producing the goods after the Achilles had stopped cooperating. But then life changed.
She felt a "stinging sensation" in her tongue, around 2023, after eating certain foods. Smyth mentioned it first to her dentist and then sought medical checks. After some false starts in terms of diagnosis, cancer was confirmed in August of last year and surgery followed almost immediately.
"My world collapsed," she said of being told she had cancer in her tongue; nervous about the outlook and, if she survived, worried about how her speech could be impacted.
However, having planned to ride the UCI Gran Fondo TT Championships in Denmark the week after being diagnosed, she persisted. Incredibly, she finished 13th, and on the way back from Denmark, stopped off in the UK to ride, and win, an RCTT race in Cambridge. And then she faced the cancer head-on.
"I had a 5 millimetre tumour removed from my tongue and things seemed really positive then," she explains of her first surgery in September last year. "But then we got results back and the surgeons didn't like what they saw. So I had a second surgery, into my neck, they were saying 'to get ahead of it'. It was to make sure it hadn't moved into my lymph nodes."
The cancer was in two lymph nodes in Smyth's neck - two tumours of 5mm and 2mm. There was nothing for it but a second surgery just a few weeks after the first. Then medics started mentioning 'stage 4' - often terminal in cancer patients.
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The bike as secret weapon
Smyth rides for Kinning Cycles - the racing team sponsored by former top domestic road racer Glenn Kinning, now a Masters cyclocross national champion and former elite Worlds cyclocross rider for Ireland. Also in the team is top TT rider Ian Inglis; Smyth's coach and her partner. And she credits Inglis - and her bike - with getting her through the last year.
After her second surgery there followed a six-week round of radiotherapy, starting last December and now she is raising money for Action Cancer NI by doing a sponsored skydive, with donations accepted at this link.
Through all the treatment, she said she "kept pedalling" - trying to do some workouts, even at very low watts, to keep her fitness, and her sanity. Despite being told she wouldn't be able to race again, as her surgeries weakened her shoulder area, Smyth said she paid no attention to that. She never even considered anything but a full resumption of her cycling.
But, given her cancer, and surgeries, impacted the neck and tongue, eating was problematic. Again, her cycling played a key role in encouraging her to look after herself.
"My tongue, my whole mouth, was ulcerated from the treatment. There was no skin left on my throat," she said. £I had 40 stitches down my neck. But Ian kept telling me, if you don't eat, you can't train. The bike was always a big motivator."
But with two surgeries done and six weeks or radiotherapy completed at the start of this year, the crucial six-month scanned revealed she was cancer free.
"It was a second chance at life, it was unreal. You know, at the weekend I cried, I was just so happy to be there," she said of the Nationals. "The start line was victory for me. And then during the race I said to myself 'right, I'm going to win this, I'm winning this for what I've done'."
Smyth eventually came back to racing in the Ballymena Road Club 10 mile TT in April of this year, clocking a 23:04, which she said she was delighted with. Already an Ulster champion over the 10 and 25 mile distances, she has broken the hour for the first time in a 25 this year since coming back from cancer.
But her national title win was the most special. "I felt like I was chasing after myself for a year. When I won the championships, I crossed the line and cried."
So what's next? To the surprise of nobody who knows Smyth and Inglis, the journey continues full throttle from here. Smyth is already eyeing a World Masters Championships ride in Japan next year.
"The plan is go and do the Worlds. And break my Irish record again, that would be great."
