When The Sun rang showjumper Vicky Young on Wednesday (24 August) to see if she’d pose for a photo she thought it would be taken on a horse – not a bike.
The 40-year-old had been hacking out in a bikini that morning to make the most of the scorching heat.
Afterwards she posted on Facebook “I think I’ve just got papped” when a man came out to take pictures.
But it was the previous day’s bikini-wearing that got the showjumper into the tabloids.
On Tuesday (23 August) she was cycling in her home village of Bottesford, Nottinghamshire, in her bikini top and skirt.
A driver of a black car was so distracted by her outfit, he hit a post box, smashing his wing mirror.
He then went to the dog kennels run by Vicky’s parents to ask for compensation.
“I had no idea it had happened until I got a phone call from my mum saying a man in his fifties had come into the kennels with the left side of his wing mirror smashed,” said Vicky.
“He said he’d come to complain about their daughter because she was cycling round the village in a ‘bra and belt’, and he wanted someone to pay for his wing mirror.
“”The most ridiculous thing is, he was complaining about a 40-year-old grown-up woman, not a kid.”
Vicky said her mum Linda “put him in his place and kicked him out of the kennels”.
Vicky’ s Facebook post about the incident was picked up by a Sun reporter, who persuaded her to do the shoot.
“I thought the photos would be on a horse but they said bring your bike,” she said.
“I did it to make people smile, it’s a funny story,” she admitted.
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Olympic gold medallist Nick Skelton was one of the first to compliment Vicky on her first tabloid appearance, ringing her this morning.
Having been inundated with requests for radio and TV interviews, she has had to pull her horses out of this weekend’s show at Weston Lawns.
“I would have taken the wrong course or knocked down combinations,” she said.
