HIGH in the saddle – that’s Cawood’s women’s professional cyclist Emma Silversides.

The 32-year-old, who for the first season of her four-year pro career on the Continent is starring as a team’s principal rider, bagged an impressive 12th place in her opening race.

Winter was spent training with her new racing team, Sengers, a Belgium-based outfit backed by a Dutch construction company, in Belgium and Spain.

And for the first time, Silversides – who has been dogged by injury and illness – never once had to alter her training programmed during those formative four months.

She said: “That was a real achievement and one that I believe was assisted by using the right supplements from the Concap company that works closely alongside our team.”

Silversides felt in top condition for the opening race of 2011, the Het Nieuwsblad, formerly known as the Het Volk, and which attracted some of the world’s leading riders.

For women competitors, it comprised a race over 127 kilometres taking in some of Flanders’ famous cobbled climbs and streets.

Atrocious conditions of heavy driving rain and a cold wind dominated the race, but the plucky Silversides squeezed out a superb 12th place well ahead of her pre-race target of a top-20 finish and evidence her winter training programme had been spot on.

However, two days after the race she was struck by a virus characterised by violent vomiting and a dodgy tummy.

Naturally, she was left jaded, but in the next event – the Tielt Winge, an international-class race – she posted 20th place, all the more creditable given her illness and that there were no fewer than 180 riders in the women’s race.