OBE ‘a bit of a surprise,’ says Walpole St Andrew Paralympic star Jody Cundy
Jody Cundy. Photo: onEdition 2016©. - Credit: onEdition
Wisbech Paralympic gold medallist Jody Cundy has described the moment he discovered he was to receive an OBE as “a bit of a surprise.”
Cundy, 38, was named in the Queen’s New Year’s honours list after his medal-winning heroics in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro games, in which he scooped two golds.
And the Walpole St Andrew-based star, who received an MBE in 2012, admitted his latest honour caught him off guard.
“It was a bit of a surprise,” he told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.
“You kind of forget that you have an MBE but the letter came through from the Cabinet Office and I was like “ah, it could be that again!”
“It was nice to see the OBE part on it and it tops off what was an amazing year which started off with my two title wins in March and culminated with two more golds in Rio.”
Cundy also revealed that he has had to put plans for a quiet 2017 on hold after discovering that a World Championships could be set to take place in Los Angeles in just 10 weeks’ time.
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“2017 was going to be a quiet year and I was going to get back to the bike and go on a tour of the UK and other bits and pieces, but it sounds like we have a World Championships in 10 weeks time,” he said.
“It’s going to be a complete shock to the system because most of the athletes on the GB team didn’t have any plans for so it could be interesting.
“The end of the year will be interesting – we’ve got a few events that team GB is planning and we’ll get back on the track cycling scene but this year is all about me enjoying riding my bike.
“I’ll have to do a lot of training in a short space of time as I’ve been enjoying a lot of down time so panic training is the way I’d describe the next 12 weeks!”