London 2012 Olympics: GB cycling champion Joanna Rowsell reveals how alopecia spurred her to gold success I was gutted when it happened. I had been a girl who loved having my long hair in plaits. I remember crying one night to my parents and asking why it was happening. They said they would find someone to fix it. It was hard being a teenager and having alopecia. I didn't bother with make-up or clothes because I didn't want to think about my appearance. Around a third of those affected by alopecia see hair regrowth within six months, but some sufferers never regain their hair. Rowsell has lost and regained hers three times over the past 13 years and the unpredictability and obvious nature of the disorder can cause enormous distress. But she refused to let it beat her. The champion cyclist was snapped up by British Cycling's talent scouts at the age of 15 and in 2005 won the Junior Women's National 2k Individual Pursuit title. She followed up her success with golds in the Team Pursuit at the World Championships in 2008 and 2009, a silver in 2010 and gold in the European Track Championships in 2011. Now just months away from the Olympics, last week she was part of the Team Pursuit trio who won gold at the Track World Cup with a record-breaking time of 3 minutes 18.148 seconds. She then had her own win in the Individual Pursuit against former world champion Alison Shanks, from New Zealand, despite undergoing no training for the event. And when she mounted the podium she decided not to cover her head. She said: "Sometimes I've worn one on the podium because I think all girls like to look nice and feel pretty, especially when you're going to get your photo taken and the cameras are on you. But I don't always get time to put it on because often we have the ceremony five minutes after the race. Now, I cannot imagine my life if I had not had alopecia. I don't know what route I would have taken. It scares me to think I would not have found cycling. The alopecia made me very shy so I stayed in and intensely focused on my homework or that A* in an exam. Working hard was the only thing that stopped me from worrying about the future, about whether I would get a boyfriend or how I would face getting a job with strangers. Then cycling came along and I applied the same work ethic. I worked through any worries I had about my hair and I focused solely on that. It made me who I am.