He once dreamed of getting paid to ride his bike and has no truck with her whingeing. You don't know how easy you've got it,'" she says. Dan isn't bothered about her alopecia and nor, it would seem, is she. But she concedes it was very hard when her hair first started to fall out, back when she was Really, the brave thing was learning to deal with it when I was young — going to my first training camp when nobody knew me or about my condition.
That was brave. Alopecia is a general term used for hair loss; this can be anything from a small bald patch on the head to the loss of all the hair over the entire body.
According to Alopecia UK , it affects approximately 1. The exact cause is still not known, but it is generally agreed that it is a disease of the immune system, which attacks affected hair follicles by mistake. It doesn't affect the sufferer's physical health, though it can certainly cause psychological scars. Rowsell has lost almost all her hair, hence not having to shave her legs and having to pencil in her eyebrows each morning. But, to me, working hard stopped me worrying about the future.
Then there was the cycling: at 15, Joanna was scouted by the British Cycling talent team when they visited her school in Sutton, Surrey. At the time she had little interest in cycling but, after clocking her incredibly fast time in a school trial, the scouts felt she had raw talent and she started to train.
Then, at the age of 16, the thing she had longed for happened: her hair started to grow back. Within a few months it fell to below her ears. But it changed everything. It was so nice to leave the house and feel normal. My heart would sink when I saw another clump coming out. She went through that process again three years ago, when her hair again grew back in patches, although this time only for a month.
After the previous cycle of hope followed by disappointment, it must have been another crushing blow. Maybe doing it would mean properly confronting the fact that I had lost my hair. There is still part of me that is in the process of accepting it. This time, though, she was determined. She enlisted the help of a friend, and together they went to Selfridges in London for a wig trying-on session.
That, suddenly, I could be in control and I could have hair whenever I wanted, look however I wanted. She emerged from the shop with two wigs: one dark brown and straight with a fringe for daytime, and a dark curly one for evenings.
It felt like a new me. I remember trying on all these different clothes and just really enjoying it. I felt more feminine. Among them was her boyfriend Dan, now 25, a fellow cyclist with whom she lives in Manchester.
Three years ago, Rowsell experienced a third period of re-growth, but it lasted just four weeks. That coincided soon after she had met her first boyfriend.
She was petrified, initially, that this superficial change would cause him to reassess, but he didn't mind a bit. Not instantly comfortable with the idea of being a poster girl for alopecia sufferers — "I didn't want to be known as the girl with alopecia.
I didn't want that to be what defines me," she said on Saturday — Rowsell now sees it as a privilege. After the gold medal ride, Rowsell also reflected on how she considers her condition, and her ability to overcome the challenges it threw up, as a reason she has achieved so highly.
That doesn't mean she doesn't like to mix up her look by dipping into her collection of wigs - sometimes for victory ceremonies at cycling meets if she has the time and the inclination. I've realised now that I've got maybe a responsibility, And it's always going to be a part of me, so I may as well embrace it and hopefully inspire other girls.
After the London Olympics I focussed more on individual events and in completed the World Championships and Commonwealth Games double with gold medals at both events in the Individual Pursuit that year.
However the team blew the competition away to take a gold medal again and 3 new World Records in the process. I have suffered with alopecia, resulting in hair loss, since I was 10 years old which has brought with it many challenges to overcome as I grew up.
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