Cycling Weekly Awards: Josh Quigley wins Outstanding Achievment Award

"That's amazing. I wasn't expecting that," says Josh Quigley when we called him to tell him his seven-day distance record had been voted Cycling Weekly's Outstanding Achievement in the Cycling Weekly Awards of 2021. "It seems like such a long time ago now," he tells us, speaking on the phone from Spain where he was spending three weeks enjoying some warm-weather training.

"I never thought I'd say this, but in a lot of ways I miss it," he says of the week he spent hammering up and down the A93 between Peterculter and Ballater in Aberdeenshire, eventually amassing 2,179 miles in the seven days and setting an official Guinness World Record. "It was such an intense week, but looking back, it was just amazing." he says. "I would love to do it again."

Considering he took up cycling as a way to try to break himself out of depression, Quigley has come a remarkable way.

"I was just looking for something that would make me feel a bit better," he says. "I never thought I would set world records or any of that sort of stuff. It's just a really nice moment for me just to get to that point. And you know, and then to be nominated for the award…all those people that I was up against, to think that we could win that is just incredible really."

Quigley's next project is to start road racing in 2022 and take that as far as he can.

"The way I see it, I'm 29 now... I came to cycling late, so I'm coming in at a really different angle to most people. I feel like I've got five years to really try and crack [road racing] at the highest level, and that's what I want to do."

Runners up:

• Joscelin Lowden - Women's Hour Record 
• Jason Kenny - Most decorated British Olympian 
• Christina Mackenzie - Land's End to Jogn o'Groats record 
• Anna Kiesenhofer - Women's Olympic Road Race Gold 
• Dame Sarah Storey - Britain's most successful Paralympian
• Lizzie Deignan - Inaugral Women's Paris-Roubaix winner 

Read more about Quigley, and the amazing stories of the runner's up, in Cycling Weekly magazine, in stores from Thursday, December 9. Subscribe online and get the magazine delivered to your door every week.