Zoe Tucker ‘devastated’ by theft of gold medal-winning bike

A duathlon world champion has described the theft of her racing bike as a “devastating loss”.

Zoe Tucker, from Sherborne in Dorset, had her £7,000 measured-to-fit Giant Propel, alongside another similar model, stolen from her garage at some point during Thursday night and Friday morning.

Ms Tucker rode the bike during her gold medal victory at the world championships in July, and was using it to train for next year’s event.

She told the BBC she wanted to raise awareness of the burglary so it does not happen to other people.

The 47-year-old mother-of-two moved to the property where the bikes were stolen from at the end of October, and recently replaced the garage door to provide added security for her bikes.

But on Friday morning she began a session on her training bike when she noticed something was amiss.

“I got off my bike to have a look and then realised that the garage window had been forced open with something, and there were shards of wood on the floor,” she said.

One or more intruders appeared to have gained access through the small window and then exited via the garage door with both bikes.

Ms Tucker, who is already in the process of upgrading security at her house with new locks, lights and cameras, called it a scary experience, a “personal invasion of privacy”, and criticised the “pure audacity of invading someone’s house”.

Ms Tucker first tried duathlon – a race combining a run, a cycle and another run – at an event in Thruxton, Hampshire, last October, alongside a couple of friends.

In the world championships, she became world champion after a 5km run, a 19.7km bike ride, followed by a 2.5km run to finish.

She came first in her category and was also the fastest British woman overall in all age groups.

Ms Tucker is set to compete in the next world championships in Abu Dhabi in November, and the European championships in July.

But she told the BBC: “I’m at a bit of a loss of where to go from here… that is my racing bike and that’s what I use it for.

“It’s measured up, it’s specifically designed for racing, it’s got aero bars which are for the time trial distances.

“That’s what I won the world championships on, that would be my racing bike that I compete on, so without that it’s a game-changer.”

She added: “It’s an absolute sense of loss… it’s the loss of knowing that your training is going to have to change direction overnight, and not knowing how long it will take to go through the whole hoops and processes of replacing that bike.”

She said her competition training was now “completely side-tracked”, and hoped that someone might be able to provide her with a temporary replacement in the meantime.

In a statement Dorset Police said: “We are carrying out enquiries into the matter. No arrests have been made at this time.

“We will thoroughly review all reported incidents of this nature and will explore all available lines of enquiry to identify those involved.”