This Thursday is the Examiner Community Awards at the John Smith’s Stadium and today we reveal that the Achievement Award winner will be Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Ed Clancy. Here Ed talks about his himself, his career and what helps to make him such a trailblazer for the GB team.

Tomorrow we reveal who has won the Examiner’s Special Award for Outstanding Community Spirit.

Syngenta is very proud to continue our support of the 2017 Examiner Community Awards.

The work we do at Syngenta helps farmers all over the world grow higher yields from their crops, providing greater choice of quality food at an affordable price. We work very hard to stay in touch with our local community and get involved wherever we can.

As well as the Examiner Community Awards, our Employees Community Gift Scheme and our annual Connecting Communities events are just two of the ways we do this.

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We continue to invest in our apprenticeship programme, providing employment opportunities for local people and we remain committed to keeping professional and skilled manufacturing jobs in Kirklees for many years to come.

We thank and pay tribute to all of the award nominees for their continued dedication and we extend special congratulations to Ed Clancy in receiving the Examiner Community Awards’ Achievement Award in 2017.

The winner of this year’s Achievement Award is the best athlete to ever come from Huddersfield.

Cyclist Ed Clancy lives in the Holme Valley and his achievements are, quite simply, awesome.

He is the most successful team pursuit rider in history and the most decorated Yorkshire athlete ever.

He is an absolute inspiration to the town and the many youngsters – and those considerably older – who have taken up cycling after seeing his brilliant success.

Huddersfield's Ed Clancy with the third gold medal of his Olympic career

He’s a three times Olympic gold medalist, an Olympic bronze medalist and five times world champion.

Ed has a unique blend of pure speed and endurance and is the first man out in the team pursuit. His job to get the GB team to their average speed as quickly as possible. He is unrivalled and classed as one of the best in the world and a lot of the team’s world-beating success is down to the start he gives them.

All this and he was a relatively late starter in the sport.

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Ed was brought up first at Ingbirchworth and then moved to Denby Dale and Holmfirth, attending Gilthwaites First School, Scissett Middle, Shelley Cillege and then the former Huddersfield Technical College where he did maths and an engineering course.

The 32-year-old, who now lives in Holmbridge with girlfriend Natalie Smith, was offered a place on a civil engineering course at Loughborough University in Leicestershire but by then he’d just started doing time trails and road races with the Holme Valley Wheelers where his immense talent was spotted by Wheelers stalwart Peter Root.

Cyclist Ed Clancy with his OBE after receiving it from the Prince of Wales during an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London

Ed said: “Peter urged me to go to team trials to try to get on a national cycling programme so I did even though I was quite old when I started racing.

“At that time cycling was well funded by the Lottery as the aim was to nurture talent to compete in the 2012 London Olympics.”

In short, it all fell into place and after completing his A-levels Ed was offered a place in the under 23 GB squad so turned down the university place to pursue a career in cycling which has since soared to unimaginable heights.

He now splits his time between track racing during the winter months – competing in the World Cup and World Championships for the GB team – and road racing in the summer for the JLT Condor team.

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Last week and this he has competed in town centre places as far apart as Croydon, Bath and Aberdeen.

Ed has revealed the secret to his remarkable fitness ... plenty of sleep.

He likes to get his head down for around 10 hours a day and said: “I’m a big sleeper, to be honest. If I end up with a couple of six hour sleeps things can go pear-shaped quite quickly and your form can drop off the end of a cliff. It’s vital to rest properly and when you’re a professional cyclist you need to build a whole lifestyle around the job.”

You would think Ed’s career highlight would be winning gold at the London Olympics but he regards gaining gold at Rio in the men’s team pursuit as a greater personal victory.

Just nine months before the games he suffered a prolapsed disc in his back with virtual paralysis in his right leg and feared that not only his Olympic dream was shattered but his cycling career could be over too.

Great Britain's Ed Clancy and Jason Kenny (right) arrive back from Rio de Janeiro, at Manchester Airport

But, true to form, he battled back to ultimate glory on the podium but reveals it was very much touch and go.

“I was on the physio bench during the Olympics every day and was in a right state,” he said. “It’s only now I’d say I was back to full fitness.”

And what advice does Ed have for young cyclists?

Well, his advice is for everyone.

“The main thing is to do in life what makes you happy,” he said. “Do something you have a real passion for – be that cycling or engineering – and love what you do so it’s not a chore. Put your life and soul into it and it should make you happy.”

And Ed would certainly be very happy if he fulfils his next ambition which is to compete at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 which will be his last – or as Ed puts it: “That will be that.”