REPOST - Track Cycling & Empowering Others with Mandy Marquardt - Olympic Series

[00:00:00] Rob Howe: Hello, hello, hello. We are getting in the Olympic spirit here at Diabetics Doing Things, and we're going to be rerunning some of our favorite episodes from the last few years with athletes who live with diabetes and are competing or have competed in national team or Olympic team exploits. And we'll also be adding in some new interviews with folks who have not been on the show. But this is one of my favorites, and it's from the series Tools of Type 1s. It was the second episode of Tools of Type 1s that we did in 2019, end of 2018, beginning of 2019. And this person, Mandy Marquardt, was one of the first people that I found on Instagram when I joined the Diabetes Online community. And it's really important because I wanted to do this episode and update it because she posted something the other day to Instagram, which i think is really good for us who are not involved in the olympics or olympic sport to really understand because every olympic sport has different qualifying criteria so i'm going to read you an excerpt from mandy's post the other day on instagram from about two weeks ago and here is it goes in her caption it says the journey to paris has come to an end Unfortunately, the United States will not have any male and female track sprint cyclists at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France. The female sprinters missed out on qualifying by one country spot in the individual sprint. It has been a challenging reality to accept. Since I've had time to reflect, it really has been a fun and fulfilling two-year Olympic qualifying journey with my teammates. How do you qualify for the Olympic Games in track cycling? There are no Olympic trials for track cycling. Instead, quotas are allocated to the National Olympic Committees. After qualification period, the NOCs, or National Federations, select the athletes who will compete at the Olympic Games. What does that process look like? Over the past two years, my teammates and I have accumulated Olympic qualifying points in the Team Sprint, Individual Sprint, and Individual Keirin for the United States at nine major UCI events. Continental Championships, Nations Cups, World Cups, and World Championships. This means that as an athlete, you have to be strategic about every competition and always prioritize and balance racing, training, tapering, and your health while traveling all over the world. The team events have a privileged position in the qualification system. The top eight ranked nations in the team sprint automatically get two starting spots for the individual sprint and individual Keirin events. Other nations' riders can qualify individually through the sprint and the Kieran. If a continent did not qualify through a sprint event, team sprint, individual sprint, or individual Keirin, the best-ranked nation of that continent in the individual sprint event will bump out the country ranked in seventh. In this case, Egypt bumps out the United States. Understandably, the Olympics is inclusive and every continent is represented. But don't take away a qualified country spot. Just add the continental quota spot. The 2024 Female Olympic Ranking, a two-year qualifying process. The United States was the closest to qualify through the individual sprint. Here's the overall breakdown. Team sprint, 12th out of 29 nations. Only the top 8 nations qualify. Individual Keirin, 12th out of 46 nations. Only the top 7 nations qualify. Individual sprint, 7th out of 45 nations. Only the top 7 nations qualify, but the continental quota spot comes from the sprint and the 7th place spot goes to Africa. And there's a twist. If a nation with two female riders qualified both the individual female sprint and individual Keirin events, then two riders qualified for the Olympics, that's fair. Both riders have competed in all Olympic qualifying events over two years. But here's the twist. If one female sprinter qualifies both the sprint spots, the individual sprint and individual Keirin spot for their country, then that nation can use the second sprint spot for their endurance team, because their endurance rider has Olympic qualifying points. In this case, Australia and Italy only have one female sprinter going to the Olympics, but they're giving their extra sprint spot to their endurance team. The extra endurance rider will ride the team pursuit or be a reserve rider, but at least the endurance rider is guaranteed to race the individual sprint and Keirin at the Olympic Games. I do not believe this is fair and transparent. And she's adding the UCI cycling. Riders should only be able to compete in an event at the Olympics if they have Olympic qualifying points in that specific event and have raced in that event throughout the entire Olympic qualification process. This might be a bad example, but you won't see a marathon runner just being entered into the 100 meter sprint because their country qualified an additional sprint spot. It's the Olympics. In this case, the two sprint spots should have gone to the next two qualified countries in the individual sprint, which are the United States and Malaysia. The United States missed qualifying for the Tokyo Olympic Games in the individual sprint in the same situation. It's just bittersweet and a bit of deja vu. You're good, but just not good enough. It's been a challenging year. I suffered an injury at the beginning of the year that set me back, affecting my progression and performance. At the Pan Am Championships, I got crashed out in the Keirin. It all just wasn't meant to be. Does that mean I failed at making two Olympic teams? I'm done? No. I still love the sport, and I will walk away on my own terms someday. My heartfelt gratitude goes to all the USA Cycling staff, Coach Aaron Hartwell and Coach Andrew Harris, for their consistent and invaluable support on this Olympic journey. Despite the outcome, my teammates and I dedicated ourselves wholeheartedly, and I take immense pride in our collective effort. Thank you to Team Novo Nordisk, my sponsors, supporters, family, and friends. In some ways, I do feel like I let you down, but the journey continues. Love, Mandy. sending all of our support and care to Mandy during this difficult period and we'll be cheering her on at an event very soon. So with that enjoy this interview from the Tools of Type 1 series originally aired in 2019 with Mandy Marquardt, U.S. national team member. Here we are episode two Tools of Type 1s. I followed this person for a couple years now on Instagram. She's one of the first people that I found, Mandy Marquardt. She's a track cyclist for Team Novo Nordisk, which is the first cycling team with all type 1 diabetic athletes. Pretty awesome. And she's also on the USA Cycling National Team. No big deal. Her hashtag is hashtag racing with diabetes. You can find her on Instagram at Mandy Marquardt. And I'm going to tag her in the show notes and in the post on Instagram. So really enjoyed this episode. Really glad that Mandy and Team Novo Nordisk took the time to really give thoughtful answers. Definitely somebody you need to follow. And big shout out to Mandy for doing this. So really hope you enjoy episode two of Tools of Type 1s. Mandy's tool is track cycling and inspiring, educating, and empowering people affected by diabetes. Enjoy.

[00:07:09] Mandy Marquardt: Hi, I'm Mandy Marquardt. I'm from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 16. I'm 27 now and I'm a professional cyclist for Team Novo Nordisk, the world's first all type 1 diabetes professional cycling team and I also race for the USA Cycling

[00:07:28] Rob Howe: National Team. What is your tool of type 1s and what's the one thing that a person living with T1D could learn from you or your experience? The one thing that a person living with type 1

[00:07:44] Mandy Marquardt: diabetes could learn from me and my experience is to be unstoppable because I have been an athlete my entire life and when I was diagnosed at 16, a doctor told me I would never be able to compete at a high level and I've proven that wrong to myself ever since. And so this platform of racing at the professional level and for my country and living and racing with type 1 diabetes is huge for me. It's an incredible platform to be able to inspire, educate, and empower people affected by diabetes. And I hope that they can be inspired by what I do and what my team does so they can continue and be the best version of themselves and to live a healthy lifestyle and continue chasing their dreams. What is the simplest thing you've done that has helped you

[00:08:37] Rob Howe: with the management of your type 1 diabetes? Where did you learn it or who showed it to you?

[00:08:43] Mandy Marquardt: A big part of managing my diabetes really came from the root of when, around the time I was diagnosed, I had an endocrinologist work with me very closely and she had mentioned that I should write down what I eat, like what I did as far as exercise that day, just every detail from the time how much insulin I took so in that week I was able to really see a lot of what what I was doing and how my body was being affected by these foods or this type of stress or you know the type of exercise or just really anything I really got to see in that week how I was affected and what I could do to just feel better and be a better athlete. So all around, I just got to learn so much in that time frame about myself.

[00:09:43] Rob Howe: What failures or apparent failures with T1D have made you better at living the rest of your life or made you more well-rounded as a person?

[00:09:53] Mandy Marquardt: I wouldn't say that being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes or all these things have been you know failures I did at the beginning think it was something that would hold me back because a doctor told me I would never be able to compete at a high level and I've been able to prove that to myself and that's the most important thing and that overall has just made me a better person because even though it was a setback, I broke that barrier and I proved to myself that I'm able to compete at the highest level of my sport and still live a normal life. And it doesn't change

[00:10:29] Rob Howe: who I am. What unusual or absurd opinion or approach regarding your diabetes do you have?

[00:10:39] Mandy Marquardt: that's a funny one um yeah so kind of a joke is like I feel like I can say it is that one thing I'll never have to worry about you know since I already live with type 1 diabetes is that I never have to worry about getting type 2 diabetes no but it's it's really important for me to just be healthy on and off the bike. And yeah, that's yeah. So it's just kind of a my own joke. But it's really important for me as an athlete to show people that it is possible and you just have to take control of your diet and, you know, be disciplined. But yeah, I mean, I want to live as long as I can and reach my fullest potential with type 1 diabetes.

[00:11:28] Rob Howe: What's your favorite thing? What gets you to smile or laugh almost every time?

[00:11:35] Mandy Marquardt: My dog Ruby is by far my favorite. She is the sweetest. And when I come home from training or anywhere, she's just always so happy to see me. But it's really the incredible community that I have within the cycling and the diabetes community that just makes me really enjoy being in the sport. And that's important to have people, you know, you being surrounded by people that you enjoy and that bring you happiness.

[00:12:05] Rob Howe: In the last five years, what new adjustment to your lifestyle has improved your life with diabetes the most?

[00:12:13] Mandy Marquardt: I would say in the last five years, the biggest adjustment to my type 1 diabetes that has improved my lifestyle is a continuous glucose monitor because I'm able to really see the data and what's in front of me. You know, it's really helpful when I'm traveling and training to see my trends and to see where I'm at. So technology has really advanced and I am really grateful for that. So there's really no excuse for me not to control my diabetes.

[00:12:47] Rob Howe: What bad advice regarding diabetes do you see or hear that you'd like to address?

[00:12:54] Mandy Marquardt: Bad advice regarding diabetes that I'd like to address is that there's a stigma behind diabetes that you're not able to live a normal life, which is kind of, it's surprising to me because you actually are, you know, you don't really know until you're in somebody's shoes, like what they're going through. So before I was diagnosed, I honestly had no idea, excuse me, what the difference between type 1 and type 2 was, right? So I was just, first of all, not educated enough. And so I think that, you know, just kind of made me ignorant because I wasn't educated. And so we're just normal people like anybody else. We just, you know, how I describe it is we just have this organ in our body that's lazy and doesn't want to function. And, you know, we have the resources today. Like I am super grateful that I have the resources to manage my diabetes. So it's just to educate people more. And we are normal people and we, you know, didn't do this upon ourselves. But as far as type 2 diabetes, it's just educating them and letting them know that, you know, your diabetes could be reversible, right? So there's just all these coulds and what ifs, but it really just comes down to education and just being open to that. And, yeah.

[00:14:21] Rob Howe: What priority are you focusing on in your own life currently? This can be diabetes-related or not.

[00:14:29] Mandy Marquardt: the biggest priority right now that I'm focusing on in my life is the 2020 Olympics so I race for the national team um throughout world cups and world championships so my ultimate goal is to represent my country and that we qualify as a nation for the 2020 Olympic games and that would be an incredible platform to inspire, educate, and empower people affected by diabetes. That would be huge. And just to be able to get to that point and that day of racing that I am able to execute and perform my best would be just an incredible feeling.

[00:15:11] Rob Howe: Who is someone that you look up to and what have they taught you? How do you apply that to your

[00:15:16] Mandy Marquardt: life. I do look up to a lot of people in different areas of my life. You know, if it wasn't for Team Novo Nordisk, you know, Phil Southerland, the CEO and founder of the team, and just all my teammates and people behind, you know, Team Novo Nordisk, they have given me this life. And I honestly wouldn't be in this position, I think, if it wasn't for my team, you know, because they have given me that perspective that I can really do anything and that support behind Team Novo Nordisk and Novo Nordisk and everybody in the community, we've reached tons of people. I mean, it's pretty cool to have one of the biggest followings with over 8 million followers for us on social media. So we have not only just reached the diabetes community, but the cycling community and showing everybody what's possible with type 1 diabetes. So it's, yeah, I'm grateful for all the people that I've met and that I've come across because of this team and this journey. So I'm excited for what

[00:16:22] Rob Howe: the future holds. What are you most hopeful for? This can be diabetes related or not.

[00:16:31] Mandy Marquardt: I'm definitely most hopeful for so much I mean wow this this question to me is like so open-ended because it's everything from just my diabetes right so to finding a cure to being an Olympian to just being the best athlete that I can be every day and I want to make sure that through my sport that I just reach people in a way that makes them believe too that they have the power to do anything, whether they have diabetes or not, that even if there's a setback that you're still able to break the barrier. What advice would you give someone who has T1D and is trying to pursue a career in your line of work? Racing for Team Novo Nordisk, the world's first all type 1 diabetes cycling team we are all racing with type 1 diabetes so you know we're showing I'm showing that it is possible to be an athlete to exercise you know to follow your dreams even with type 1 diabetes so really anybody can pursue their career or line of work or anything if they really believe it and they have a passion for it because it is possible you're going to have people tell you you can't do it or you're going to be you're going to be doubted and that's I've been in that spot and I've questioned even then myself but really what I've grown and have come strong out of that because I wouldn't be in this position you know racing for team Novo Nordisk and the national team if I didn't believe I could actually really do it so yeah really just go for

[00:18:16] Rob Howe: and follow your dreams. What's the one facet or trait that you think makes you uniquely you?

[00:18:24] Mandy Marquardt: Explain why. The one trait that makes me uniquely me, I am kind of awkward sometimes, but I guess that that can go in different directions, right? Like people can be like, okay, this girl, this girl is awkward but no um yeah I just really like to make people smile and to smile I mean just I feel like that just says a whole lot about who you are and you know sometimes we all like get in our own head and question our own abilities or what we're saying or what we're doing next but really it's just to be who you are and that's you know I love to smile and that's really one thing um that

[00:19:08] Rob Howe: makes me me. Where do you get plugged into the T1D community the most?

[00:19:18] Mandy Marquardt: So as you know, I race for Team Novo Nordisk and I race for my country. And, you know, I just, diabetes has given me this team, this community. And I'm not sure where I'd be without it. And, you know, I just want to kind of continue to spread that message, you know, from me and my team that we're more than just a sports team too. We're people with diabetes. We have the same challenges and struggles as you or just as anybody. And we all want to dream big and believe in ourselves and to continue to make that impact in the diabetes community. And it's transformed my life and who I am. And so I try to definitely be creative with my social media outlets. And I I love connecting with the type 1 diabetes community and athletes from all over the world. So, you know, I'm on Instagram and on Twitter, and I have a Facebook athlete page and a website. So, yeah, I'm always open to connecting with the diabetes community and anybody that ever has questions. And I try to kind of give a unique perspective on my life on and off my bike. just to share what a daily looks like when I'm training and traveling. And yeah, it's just a unique experience. And I want to look back to on my career and say that I have done everything I could to just enjoy it to the fullest and meet people along the way. It's just, it's an incredible journey. and so right now um I'm getting ready for the world cup season so uh I'll be going to Canada and New Zealand and Hong Kong and I've never been to New Zealand Hong Kong and I'm so incredibly excited to go to that part of the world so just getting to see life on my bike um you know and and racing on a on a velodrome so it's it's an incredible experience I don't race like on the road or kind of like Tour de France style. I race on an indoor 250 meter velodrome with on a bike that has no brakes. Crazy, right? But that's why I like I want to fill people in and tell them to, you know, to share my journey. And that way I want to share my journey with them is kind of what I'm saying is that the sport is not so common. It is very common in Europe, but a lot of people have never heard of the velodrome or track cycling. So, you know the diabetes and the track cycling it's it's just a unique experience for me to be able to share that with people and you know yeah if I gets more people on a bike in general then that's awesome and if that gets people to manage their diabetes or be inspired by us as a team and and me then I am wow like I've I feel like I've like done my job but at the same time too I want to reach the sport at the highest level and reach my fullest potential. And that is, uh, representing my country and myself in the Olympics. Man, that would, that would be huge. So I'm like all in, I'm all in and USA Cycling, my team, my family, they're so supportive. And And I love this journey so much that I don't even want to think when it's over. I'm just living in the moment. And that's really important for me, to be in the moment and to be present in whatever I'm doing from just nutrition to training to diabetes management. Yeah, this is me. and I've been incredibly thankful to be able to share my story with you guys and diabetics doing things. Like, this is such a unique community. We're all sharing, you know, ways that we empower, educate, and just let people know what we're doing, and that's huge. So thank you so much, and I hope you guys follow me on my journey to 2020. Thank you.

[00:24:03] Rob Howe: questions I want to know the answers to. And hopefully you'll learn a few things as well. If you like this episode, be sure to review us on iTunes. And if you didn't like it, go ahead and let me know that too. I want to know. All the feedback is good to me. Thanks again for your time. I value that more than anything you could possibly give me. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.