St George’s International School in Luxembourg-Hamm had the pleasure of inviting professional cyclist, Christine Majerus to take the Primary School assembly today.

Ms Majerus is a renowned Luxembourgish cyclist who competed in the 2012 and 2016 summer Olympics and hopes to take part in the 2020 Olympics hosted in Tokyo. Ms Majerus commenced the presentation by introducing three of her special bikes; Speedy, Fanta and Cherry. Fanta being a particular favourite – not only because that was the bike she rode in the Olympics in 2016 – but also because it changes colour according to the temperature. She went on to demonstrate this polychromatic capability with a hair dryer during the presentation.

We learned that Ms Majerus is in the Luxembourgish army and is officially a soldier, which has given her the opportunity to be a professional cyclist for the past four years earning a salary.

During Ms Majerus’s presentation she highlighted the importance of wearing safety helmets whilst cycling by showing the students the watermelon test – dropping two watermelons (substituting for a human head) from the same height, one protected by a bicycle helmet and the other not. This test was a startling demonstration of how effective a bicycle helmet is at protecting and absorbing damage after an impact as the protected watermelon survived whilst the unprotected was not nearly so lucky. Students learned a great deal including that once you have a crash with your helmet on it is extremely important to replace that helmet, even if it does not look broken it will be damaged and will no longer be effective or safe.

Ms Majerus stayed on after the assembly to talk to the Year 2 students which aligned perfectly with their IPC (International Primary Curriculum) topic on Sports. They were given more insight into the safely of cycling on the road and had the opportunity to ask Ms Majerus questions such as:

- What’s your favourite sport after cycling? Rock climbing

- What do you love about cycling? It’s an adventure, it’s up to you where you go. It’s a lovely feeling to have the freedom to go wherever you like.

- How many hours of training do you do a day? It depends, I usually do two intense days with up to 4-5 hours a day, the other days I do 2-3 hours of training and I have one rest day per week.

- What do you eat before a race? I usually eat lots of pasta or rice to give me lots of energy for many hours and I avoid sweets.

- Have you won most of the races you’ve taken part in? No, 99% of the time you lose! Cycling might look like it’s an individual sport but it’s actually a team sport, I am part of a team and we work together to win the races. It’s a group effort, most people think I am riding to win for myself but I’m riding as part of a team to win together. It’s like in society, if you are in a team you should stick together and help each other to reach the goal because it’s easier together than it is alone.

To the children she also stressed the importance of finishing their education to ensure that they always have good qualifications as a contingency, in case a career as a professional sportsman does not go according to plan. Talks such as these are a great inspiration to the students at St George’s. We do hope to host many more talks such as this in the near future.

All of Primary were so thrilled to have met Christine Majerus on Tuesday morning. She talked about her experiences as an Olympian cyclist, the importance of safety and we were able to ask many questions about her life in cycling. We were delighted to receive a complimentary water bottle from Skoda and we are now inspired to go out and cycle! Thank You Christine.” – A St George’s Primary Teacher

"It was one of the best assemblies I’ve been to! She was definitely an inspiration to the children, yet also taught them about the important safety aspects of the sport in a very imaginative way" – A St George’s Primary Teacher