LET'S TALK ABOUT...SUN PROTECTION

As high summer approaches, promising blissful long hours of sun-drenched cycling, Chris Marshall-Bell urges you to take a moment to consider the serious risk to your skin

I've had dozens of surgeries in the last 10 years and they've all come because of the amount of time I've spent outdoors." Kimberley Conte had never thought much about the risk of skin cancer. "No one in my family had a history of it and I don't burn easily, so I thought I would be immune from it. I didn't take it seriously at all." But then, in 2010, she was diagnosed with a very small basal cell carcinoma between her lip and her nose. At first, she had the affected area of skin frozen using a technique called cryotherapy, a proven means of destroying cancerous cells.

"No big deal' was my attitude," reflects the Australian, who is a race director of the Women's Tour Down Under, "but what I couldn't see was the cancer still growing under the scar tissue where it had been frozen, and it kept returning. Since then, I have had multiple surgeries, including graft surgery and a full reconstruction of the tissue between my nose and my upper lip, including a full tattoo on my upper lip [the latter for cosmetic reasons]. I just didn't think something like this would happen to me."

Today, Conte is well, but she lives in the knowledge that skin cancer can always return. At the beginning of the year, she had surgery on her lower leg to remove a squamous cell carcinoma after two previous attempts failed. "I felt like I'd just been through this six months ago, and here it was recurring," sighs the 55-year-old. "I have had multiple other biopsies, surgeries and other forms of chemotherapy treatments to try to stay on top of the situation, including the removal of three melanomas on my back and arms. I'm grateful to the medical team who take care of me. It's something that we all need to take seriously."