{"id":68150,"date":"2023-10-07T02:47:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T02:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotcelebon.com\/?p=68150"},"modified":"2023-10-07T02:47:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T02:47:04","slug":"victoria-pendleton-im-doing-this-for-the-twin-i-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotcelebon.com\/lifestyle\/victoria-pendleton-im-doing-this-for-the-twin-i-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Pendleton: I&apos;m doing this for the twin I lost"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>As Victoria Pendleton prepares to walk the tightrope in a hair-raising new reality show, she reveals why it&#8217;s what her late brother would have wanted: I&#8217;m doing this for the twin I lost<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>READ MORE: Victoria Pendleton&#8217;s twin brother Alex, 42, dies after &#8216;epic battle&#8217; with brain tumour: Olympian pays tribute to her &#8216;kind, brave twinnie&#8217; who she credits with her cycling success<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The last few months have been pretty devastating for Victoria Pendleton, but she\u2019s trying to focus on the positives.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In June her twin brother Alex died of a brain tumour. \u2018It\u2019s put everything into perspective,\u2019 says the two-time Olympic cycling champion, whose 43rd birthday last month was her first without her twin.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Going through that experience, I don\u2019t think anything will ever feel that bad. But it\u2019s taught me that life is precious, so I want to live everything to its fullest.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s the reason she signed up to take part in Channel 4\u2019s Don\u2019t Look Down, a hair-raising reality series in aid of Stand Up To Cancer\u00a0that started filming barely two months after Alex\u2019s death.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Before this I was avoiding any projects that might take me away from home so I could be there for my family at the drop of a hat,\u2019 she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/05\/14\/76120223-12588669-image-m-7_1696513144306.jpg\" height=\"941\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The last few months have been pretty devastating for Victoria Pendleton, but she\u2019s trying to focus on the positives. Pictured,\u00a0Victoria and her twin brother Alex<\/p>\n<p>But when the call came for Don\u2019t Look Down she felt ready. \u2018I know that Alex would have wanted me to carry on. He was my biggest supporter, the first person I called to say, \u201cYou\u2019ll never guess what I\u2019m doing\u2026\u201d He would have been super-excited for me to do this, and because it\u2019s for Stand Up To Cancer it was a no-brainer.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Victoria and nine other celebrities, including host and team leader Paddy McGuinness, Coronation Street legend Beverley Callard, ex-footballer Anton Ferdinand (Rio\u2019s brother), TV adventurer Charley Boorman and Pussycat Doll Kimberly Wyatt, learn to walk the tightrope for the show.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s just completed her training in the Alps when we speak, and the team is still to undertake a high-wire walk 300ft above one of London\u2019s most iconic landmarks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019d think Victoria, who\u2019s also a nine-time world cycling champion, would have an advantage thanks to her athleticism and sporting mindset, as well as being a self-confessed adrenaline junkie.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I\u2019m not particularly scared of heights so I wasn\u2019t going to be terrified, but I\u2019ve got horrible balance. I\u2019m OK on two wheels, but I\u2019m clumsy. I bump into door frames and trip over stairs so I knew this would be a challenge.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, everyone was initially hopeless at tightrope walking.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018On the first day we were all horrific,\u2019 recalls Victoria. \u2018We were all looking at each other and saying, \u201cThis is actually impossible, and they\u2019re making it into a TV series?\u201d But then one by one we started to get to grips with it. Charley Boorman was a natural, but I was one of the last to get it. Everything about my sporting experience is to do with tension and strength and control, whereas when you walk the wire it\u2019s about relaxation and breathing and very smooth, meditative walking. As soon as you try to force it, it goes all wobbly and wrong. The trainer told us it wasn\u2019t the rope shaking, it was us shaking the rope.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/05\/14\/76205381-12588669-image-a-14_1696513236549.jpg\" height=\"464\" width=\"306\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/05\/14\/76205375-12588669-image-m-13_1696513229519.jpg\" height=\"464\" width=\"306\"><\/p>\n<p>In June her twin brother Alex died of a brain tumour. \u2018It\u2019s put everything into perspective,\u2019 says the two-time Olympic cycling champion, whose 43rd birthday last month was her first without her twin. Pictured,\u00a0Victoria as a child with her twin brother<\/p>\n<p>Happily the group all bonded. As the contestants least afraid of heights, Victoria and Kimberly became team cheerleaders. Beverley was the \u2018mum of the group\u2019, and Paddy was a \u2018brilliant\u2019 team leader. \u2018I\u2019d follow him into battle 100 per cent,\u2019 Victoria says.<\/p>\n<p>They shared their experiences of cancer, too. \u2018There was a real understanding,\u2019 says Victoria. \u2018Charley lost his sister to cancer and he talked to me about how he overcame it. Anton was really supportive. He gave me good advice about how he coped with grief after he lost his mum in 2017.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The team still has to tackle the London high-wire walk. \u2018It\u2019s going to be somewhere that hasn\u2019t been done before,\u2019 says Victoria. \u2018We\u2019ll be harnessed up, but for me it doesn\u2019t matter whether I\u2019m 2ft, 20ft or 100ft up, it takes exactly the same skill. There\u2019s no chance I\u2019m not going to take that first step on the wire.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile she has returned home to Wareham, Dorset, where she lives with her partner Louis Tinsley, an ex-SAS soldier who now has his own clothing range.<\/p>\n<p>Like other top athletes, she\u2019s had to reinvent herself after retiring aged 32, following the London 2012 Olympics. And it hasn\u2019t been easy. She\u2019s spoken of falling into a suicidal depression in 2018 after having to abort a charity attempt on Mount Everest with Ben Fogle while going through a divorce from ex-husband Scott Gardner.<\/p>\n<p>She says her all-action lifestyle is her key to healing. \u2018Being active and pushing myself is always going to be a kind of therapy for me, because it\u2019s like I\u2019m reminding myself I\u2019m still capable, that I still have life to live.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Which is poignant in light of her brother\u2019s death. \u2018I want to make the most of life. Doing things like Don\u2019t Look Down makes sense to me. I\u2019m going to leave the fear behind because there are a lot worse things in life.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><span>Don\u2019t Look Down for SUTC starts Tuesday, 9.30pm, Channel 4.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/femail\/article-12588669\/As-Victoria-Pendleton-prepares-walk-tightrope-hair-raising-new-reality-reveals-late-brother-wanted-Im-doing-twin-lost.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Victoria Pendleton prepares to walk the tightrope in a hair-raising new reality show, she reveals why it&#8217;s what her late brother would have wanted: I&#8217;m doing this for the twin I lost READ MORE: Victoria Pendleton&#8217;s twin brother Alex, 42, dies after &#8216;epic battle&#8217; with brain tumour: Olympian pays tribute to her &#8216;kind, brave twinnie&#8217; who she credits with [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Victoria Pendleton: I&amp;apos;m doing this for the twin I lost - Hotcelebon.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hotcelebon.com\/lifestyle\/victoria-pendleton-im-doing-this-for-the-twin-i-lost\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Victoria Pendleton: I&amp;apos;m doing this for the twin I lost - Hotcelebon.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As Victoria Pendleton prepares to walk the tightrope in a hair-raising new reality show, she reveals why it&#8217;s what her late brother would have wanted: I&#8217;m doing this for the twin I lost READ MORE: Victoria Pendleton&#8217;s twin brother Alex, 42, dies after &#8216;epic battle&#8217; 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