Lizzie Deignan is to join the Great Britain Cycling Team as a sports director, a year after she retired from the pro ranks.

The 37-year-old, world champion in 2015, will work with men’s and women’s road cycling lead, Matt Brammeier, in pursuit of silverware for Great Britain’s road riders at major events en route to the 2028 Olympics in LA.

Deignan retired last year after a career which saw her win the Worlds, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix Femmes, La Course by Le Tour de France, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and more. The new DS role is just one of the new hats she has put on in 2026, with Deignan also launching a coaching service, and becoming race organiser for the Otley Cycle Races.

"I’m excited about the opportunity to work with a strong and talented group of riders; I believe we’re one of the strongest road nations in the world," Deignan said. "It’s been over 10 years since my world title so it’s time for us to step into our potential and deliver more rainbow jerseys.

"It’s always a proud moment to represent your country - my aim is to help each rider who does that achieve their maximum performance with the best possible support."

"Bringing Lizzie into the team is a real coup," Brammeier said. "Having only recently retired from the bunch, she has so much insight and knowledge into both GB’s riders and the opposition. She also understands how we work as a team first-hand and can support and advise on how to get the best out of our riders on race day.

"Beyond that, Lizzie is a true legend of the sport and has directly inspired some of our future stars to want to follow in her footsteps, so to be working alongside her will be a real joy for them. Most importantly, she is just incredibly passionate about the sport and seeing Great Britain achieve success at the highest level and that shines through above everything."

Two-time Olympic gold medallist Katie Archibald has called time on a 13-year racing career that has made her one of the most decorated track cyclists of all time, it was announced on Tuesday.

The 32-year-old, who joined the Great Britain Cycling Team (GBCT) aged 19, won more than 50 medals across her career, including two Olympic golds, seven world titles and a record 21 European titles.

She retires as the reigning Madison world champion and European team pursuit champion, both honours she has won since beginning training to become a nurse last year.

“After 13 years competing on the international stage, and a lifetime competing against my big brother, I’ve decided to retire from the former,” Archibald said.

“Being part of the GBCT has meant being part of something bigger than myself, and it’s been a true honour to race my bike alongside the best in the country.”

Raised in Milngavie, Scotland, Archibald’s competitive introduction to cycling came in grass track in 2011, before she moved to the wooden boards of Edinburgh’s outdoor Meadowbank Velodrome.

Her first major medal was bronze in the points race at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Two years later, she won her first Olympic title in the team pursuit at the 2016 Rio Games; her second in 2021 was history-making, as she and Laura Kenny became the first female Olympic Madison champions, after the event was introduced to the Games in Tokyo. That victory is considered to be one of the most resounding ever, with more than double the points of second place.

Archibald missed her title defence at the Paris Olympics in 2024 due to a broken leg. She had previously said she wanted to compete at the Commonwealth Games this summer, and the LA Olympics in 2028.

In quotes shared by British Cycling, Archibald said the “draw of the ‘real world’” had been pulling her for a while, but she had been too afraid to leave cycling.

“Now is the right time simply because I’m not scared anymore,” she said. “I can’t claim to know why that is, but for some reason I only have a craving to live the life I’ve been saving for a rainy day, and no fear that I’ll miss the sunshine. It’s simply time.

“In the early stages of my career, I was sure I would never willingly walk away. I’ve been born in the right place at the right time with a talent that’s let me make a job of something people do for fun – that’s wild. I felt that giving this up before it was ripped from my hands would be irrational.

“At some point, though, I realised no one was going to rip it from my hands. I realised the decision would have to be mine, and I’ve found that truth quite hard to handle.”

Last September, Archibald began training as a nurse alongside her role within the GB squad. She completed her first placement earlier this year, and said she has “fallen completely in love with the whole thing”.

“When I let my friends and teammates know I was retiring from sport, they assumed it was because I wasn’t coping doing both,” she said. “The truth is, though, that there’s still a lot of ‘student’ in ‘student nurse’. I’ve had plenty of free time to train, and most of my classmates have jobs and families and commitments more taxing than mine.

“I really want to stress that the nursing training isn’t forcing me into retirement. At the same time, this thing that I’m just enamoured with is making me excited for the future, and that makes this transition less scary.”

Archibald leaves a legacy as one of the greatest endurance riders in track cycling history, and a leading figure in Great Britain’s success over the last decade.

Tom Pidcock was Britain’s big hope for the rainbow jersey on Sunday in the elite men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships, but eventually finished in 10th place, after what he described as the most unenjoyable race of his season.

Pidcock led a strong team into the 267.6km race around Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali, and in the closing stages of the race found himself as part of a strong five man group pursuing a leading duo, including eventual winner, Tadej Pogačar. However, the Yorkshireman was unable to hold on, slipping out of that group, eventually fighting his way across the line some 9.05 down.

Pidcock was seen off the back of the bunch at the team car talking with Sports Director Matt Brammeier on the second lap of the 267.5km race, raising concerns that he might have been struggling. However, when the race headed out of Kigali for a single lap of a 48km loop including the day’s two hardest climbs, he was perfectly positioned.

Close to the top of Mont Kigali, Pogačar made his race winning move, initially taking two others with him, and Pidcock found himself as part of a large chasing peloton. That group was less than a minute behind the lead when they returned to the 15.1km city circuit for the final six of the 15 laps, but though he made his way into the five man group on the following lap, there was no way back for Pidcock.

“It was so hard,” he said in a post-race interview for TNT Sport. “To be honest I didn’t feel so good in the start and then I was coming round and into the race and I just completely blew. It was survival until the finish, it was absolutely brutal.

“At one point when it was the five of us away behind Tadej, at that point I thought ‘you know anything’s possible,’ but then the legs fell off. I think I was the best guy from coming from the Vuelta so you can’t have everything these days. I did my best like I said I would and that’s it.”

Pidcock arrived in Rwanda with clear ambitions for the podium, saying before the race, "We're here to do well. I wouldn't travel all the way to Africa if I didn't think that I could perform. We'll see. I mean, it's not like we're not here to race to win. That's evident. Worlds is always a day where anything could happen. We're not making too many expectations now.”

Pidcock has always been both exciting and competitive, but his move to the Q36.5 Pro Cycling team over the winter seems to have spurred him on, and 2025 has been something of a breakthrough for the 26-year-old. He won the early season Alula Tour, finished second at Strade Bianche then took a stage at the Arctic Tour of Norway. However, perhaps his greates success so far this year was his remarkable third place at the Vuelta a España earlier this month, proving his pedigree as a genuine GC contender.

Great Britain returned from the UCI Junior Track World Championships in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, with five gold medals in their hand luggage, and five more of bronze and silver.

The young squad had a successful time in Europe, with young stars Henry Hobbs and Erin Boothman, in particular, having golden weeks. The pair both came home with two rainbow jerseys.

Boothman won the Madison, with Phoebe Taylor, and the team pursuit with Abi Miller, Arabella Blackburn, Evie Smith and Taylor. Meanwhile, Hobbs won in the omnium and in the 1km time trial. The 18-year-old also won silver in the team pursuit with Rory Gravelle, Max Hinds, Dan Thompson and Albie Jones, after they were pipped by Italy in the final.

GB’s other gold came in the men’s team sprint, for Kristian Larigo, Archie Gill, and Ioan Hepburn. There was also silver in the individual sprint for Gill, which was won by Choi Tae-ho of South Korea, bronze in the individual pursuit for Thompson, which was won by Alessio Magagnotti of Italy, and bronze in the men’s Madison for Hinds and Thompson, as Eric Igual and Eñaut Urcaregui of Spain were victors.

“[I] don’t think I could have dreamed of a better week of racing winning the omnium and backing it up with the kilo the next day, after picking up silver in the team pursuit with the lads just a couple days before,” Hobbs posted on Instagram on Monday evening.

“The biggest thanks to the support team and coaches at British Cycling and the GB Cycling Team for making the trip possible and providing the next level coaching to get me in a place to win these kinds of races,” he continued.

Hobbs became the first junior rider to sweep all six endurance events at the Junior British National Track Championships earlier this month, and is a world record holder in the individual pursuit at junior level on his way to gold at last month’s Junior European Championships.

Boothman, meanwhile, already a two-time world champion last year, and a three-time European champion, wrote that she was “super proud” to defend her two titles from 2024, although she was disappointed to miss out on the omnium after crashing out of the points race. The 18-year-old currently holds three world records at junior level.

“To win the TP with the girls this year was a dream come true, we have worked so hard as a team this year,” she said on Instagram. “So [I] couldn’t be happier to break our own world record from Euros and win the coveted rainbow jersey.”

Just eight riders will represent Great Britain this weekend at the year’s only UCI Track Nations Cup round, half the full contingent allowed for the event.

Among the names listed in the squad are Olympic silver medallist Matthew Richardson and recent European triple silver medallist Rhian Edmunds. There will, however, be no British women’s endurance riders competing in Konya, Turkey, and only two men’s endurance riders – Ben Wiggins and Ollie Wood – meaning GB will not take part in either of the team pursuits.

With only one Nations Cup event this year, rather than the usual three, why send such a stripped back team?

According to Katie Archibald, it's a matter of resources. “We got the news just a couple of days ago that we don’t have the budget, or we’re not using the budget to send any women’s endurance riders to Konya,” the former Olympic champion said ahead of last month’s National Track Championships.

“The thing that mainly made me upset from the news was the loss of the prep. I was really looking forward to being with the team down in Manchester and doing the team pursuit unit… When we cut the Konya team, I was like, ‘Ah, I really wanted to be part of that team.’

“I guess it’s just a standard pattern of the Olympic cycle that you dedicate your resources into the pointy end.”

The Great Britain Cycling Team was awarded £30,125,000 in funding for the current Los Angeles Olympics cycle, a record amount for the squad. This money goes towards supporting all aspects of the team over the four years to 2028, including equipment development and competition costs across road, track, mountain bike and BMX.

This weekend’s Nations Cup, despite being the calendar’s only one, comes at an early and inconsequential time in the Olympic cycle. It offers no qualifying points for LA 2028, and is not essential for qualifying for this year’s UCI World Championships in October. Having fielded a rider in every event at the European Championships last month, Great Britain has already qualified a full squad for the Worlds.

In such circumstances, it is not uncommon for nations to skip or send reduced squads to events to save funds.

Great Britain did not send a women’s sprint squad to the final Nations Cup round last year, having already qualified a team for the Olympics. The nation also left its women’s endurance squad at home for last year’s second of three Nations Cups.

For reasons not publicly explained, there is only one Nations Cup this year, compared to the three which have been held annually since the series began in 2021.

“If there were three Nations Cups, we probably would have gone to more than one,” Jon Norfolk, Great Britain Cycling Team head coach, told Cycling Weekly last month. “We probably would have taken one squad to one and one squad to another for different reasons, more racing opportunities, but we’d have spent more budget.

“[Having one Nations Cup] in some ways has simplified what we do a little bit, and you can then work on the longer term stuff. With more training time, what do we want to be working on so we’re more prepared and ready for, say, the World Championships at the end of the year?”

Great Britain is not alone in sending a smaller squad to Konya. Belgium has sent seven riders, while Ireland has sent two. Conversely, Australia has opted to field a full contingent of 16 riders.

The UCI Nations Cup in Konya will take place 14-16 March, and will be shown on Max and Discovery+.

The eight-rider GB squad for the event is below.

Men's sprint

Matthew Richardson
Harry Radford
Harry Ledingham-Horn

Women's sprint

Lauren Bell
Rhian Edmunds
Lowri Thomas

Men's endurance

Ben Wiggins
Ollie Wood

Great Britain got off to a golden start at this year's UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, earning the nation's first-ever victory in the mixed relay on Friday.

The team of Zoe Bäckstedt, Cat Ferguson, Thomas Mein, Oscar Amey, Zoe Roche and Milo Wills won by just two seconds ahead of the Italian sextet in Liévin, France.

Great Britain had finished second in the event in the previous two editions of the championships.

The mixed relay is a six-lap event in which nations compete in teams of six, composed of elite, under-23 and junior riders. It is up to the teams to decide their own racing order.

This year's race proved a close-fought affair, with five seconds separating first-placed Great Britain and third-placed France on the podium. The US, having led into the final lap, finished fourth, eight seconds down.

Bäckstedt opened the effort for Great Britain, the only female to do so across all 10 starting nations. The Brits sat in seventh place at the halfway point, when the two newly crowned junior national champions, Roche and Amey, exchanged the baton.

Seventeen-year-old Amey then catapulted his team into second place, before handing over to Ferguson, who held on to a podium position.

Mein, a former national champion and the only elite rider in the squad, led the charge on the final lap, where he clocked the team's fastest time. The 26-year-old's winning margin of two seconds gave him enough time to sit up and salute his teammates, who celebrated together beyond the line.

"I was feeling a bit nervous as there were quite a lot of elite riders on the last lap, so it wasn't going to be an easy ride home," Mein said afterwards.

"I had two in front, some wheels to chase, but it was just about trying to hit every line correctly like we did in practice and trying to be smooth with it, to not get full of the pressure of the last lap.

"Heading over the finish line first was an incredible feeling," he added.

The mixed relay marked the opening event of this year's UCI Cylo-cross World Championships.

The competition continues on Saturday with the junior women's, under-23 men's and elite women's races. Sunday will then bring the junior men's, under-23 women's and elite men's races.

There will be no British riders competing in the under-23 men's or elite women's races. According to British Cycling, this is because "there were no riders who met [the] objectives strongly enough to be selected" for the two events.

Bäckstedt, the defending under-23 world champion, will vie to keep her title on Sunday, despite being eligible to compete in the elite race as the fourth best ranked woman in the world.

"I don’t want to jump too early into elite and potentially regret my decision," the 20-year-old said, "so I decided this year that I will battle for the under-23 title.

"It’s going to be super-tough and super-close racing, but I’m really excited to push for that title again and see what I can do."

One win is usually enough to satisfy a rider at a key competition, so when Great Britain’s Erin Boothman earned seven at her first of the year, she was left feeling “over the moon”.

The 17-year-old took a clean sweep of the bunch events at the Interland ‘Next Generation’ junior meet in Apeldoorn, Netherlands over the weekend. She won the Madison with partner Abi Miller, as well as solo titles in the tempo, elimination, points and scratch races.

In the timed events, too, Boothman ruled supreme, taking victories in the four-lap kilometre time trial and the team pursuit, the latter alongside Miller, Evie Smith and Millie Salmon.

“I’m over the moon with my performance at Apeldoorn this weekend,” Boothman said in comments shared with Cycling Weekly.

“Achieving a clean sweep was an amazing feeling and I’m particularly proud to win the team pursuit with the girls and do the rainbow stripes proud.

“The kilo was a new event for the junior women’s category, so I wanted to embrace it and execute a ride I was really happy with, which I did, and coming away with the victory was a bonus.”

Already a double world champion, Boothman is now in her second and final year as a junior on British Cycling's academy.

Last August, she was the youngest member of the British team pursuit quartet who won gold and broke the world record at the UCI Junior Track World Championships in China. The other three members of that team – Cat Ferguson, Carys Lloyd and Imogen Wolff – have all signed WorldTour contracts for 2025.

Boothman also won the Madison in China together with Lloyd.

Reflecting on her latest results in Apeldoorn, the teenager said it was a “great start to the year” and “a real confidence boost”.

“I’m excited for what’s to come,” she added.

The Interland ‘Next Generation’ event, a staple of the junior calendar that attracts top up-and-coming talent, also saw British winners in Henry Hobbs and the men’s sprint squad – Archie Gill, Kristian Larigo, Ioan Hepburn and Charlie Holt.

It was the first competition in which GB riders competed wearing the national squad’s new kit, now provided by Italian manufacturer Alé.

Looking to continue the success of its junior riders, British Cycling announced on Monday that it is talent scouting for the “next track cycling superstars”. The national squad is looking for candidates born in 2010, 2011 or 2012, and has set a sign-up deadline of 30 March. Testing will be carried out in April.

Mark Cavendish, Laura Kenny and Geraint Thomas are just some of the hundreds of names to have come through the Great Britain Cycling Team academy, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

The pathway, founded in 2004 by Rod Ellingworth, has become a key conveyor belt for talent within British Cycling. It began in Manchester with six teenagers – including an 18-year-old Cavendish – and has since helped elevate 472 riders to the top of the sport, across all disciplines. Over the last two decades, its graduates have won over 1,300 international medals.

“There was a massive gap that existed between those riding at the elite end and those coming into the system,” said British Cycling’s Jon Bartlett, remembering the beginnings of the academy he now oversees. “There just wasn’t a vehicle to grab those riders and develop them, in terms of giving them the riding opportunities, the training, the competition and the international exposure.”

The first intake, which counted Cavendish and triple Olympic gold medallist Ed Clancy, began as an experiment, with the riders living together in a house in Fallowfield, Manchester’s busy student district. “There was a bit of a track focus to start with, but they also did a lot on the road, and it just grew from there,” Bartlett told Cycling Weekly.

Today, still supported by National Lottery funding, riders as young as 16 years old are recruited into the track, road and mountain bike pathways, while the BMX disciplines start at 15. Applications open every year for new riders, and anybody can apply. “It’s an open-door policy,” said Bartlett.

Ellingworth’s original vision for the academy was to build a medal factory for international success, particularly the Olympics. The results have been unprecedented. Since the Beijing Games in 2008, two thirds of Olympic medals have been won by pathway riders, including three by Emma Finucane this summer.

“It’s about being at the front of it,” said Bartlett, asked how the success has been maintained. “Obviously technology is very different now to 20 years ago, how people communicate is very different, so being relevant all the time, I think, is quite important. Then you just layer in some of the best practice and gold-standard approaches around talent development. Some of those things never change.”

Of the current crop, the most exciting prospects are in the women’s endurance squad, according to the academy head. “I think Cat Ferguson is an obvious one. Imogen Wolff. Those two, and Carys Lloyd,” Bartlett said. “That women’s endurance squad just keeps coming through. I think from the [junior] track worlds into the road worlds, that squad won seven world titles [this year].” All aged 18, Ferguson, Wolff and Lloyd will ride on the women’s WorldTour next season.

Olympic cycling legend Sir Chris Hoy has been told he has terminal cancer and may only live up to four more years, he has revealed.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the 48-year-old British track sprinter gave an update on his diagnosis, which he first announced in February, saying it is incurable.

"As unnatural as it feels, this is nature," Hoy said. "You know, we were all born and we all die, and this is just part of the process.

"Hand on heart, I’m pretty positive most of the time and I have genuine happiness. This is bigger than the Olympics. It's bigger than anything. This is about appreciating life and finding joy."

Hoy first found out about his cancer diagnosis last September, when a scan revealed a pain in his shoulder to be a tumour. Further scans then found cancer in his prostate, as well as tumours in his pelvis, hip, spine and rib.

Doctors told him that his cancer was stage four – the most advanced stage – and that he has two to four years left to live.

In February, the six-time Olympic gold medallist wrote on Instagram that he was receiving chemotherapy, which was "thankfully going really well".

"I’m optimistic, positive and surrounded by love for which I’m truly grateful," he wrote.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Hoy explained that his medication leaves him feeling weak, but he has "learnt to live in the moment".

"It's absolutely not denial or self-delusion. It's about trying to recognise, what do we have control over?” he said. "The fear and anxiety, it all comes from trying to predict the future. But the future is this abstract concept in our minds. None of us know what's going to happen. The one thing we know is we’ve got a finite time on the planet."

The former track sprinter also revealed that his wife, Sarra, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an incurable disease of the central nervous system, last November.

Hoy has documented his experience over the past year in a memoir, which he will publish next month under the title 'All That Matters: My Toughest Race Yet'.

The Scot is currently in Denmark, working on the BBC's coverage of the UCI Track World Championships. "I just want to reassure you all that I'm feeling fit, strong and positive," he wrote on Instagram on Saturday night.

"[I'm] overwhelmed by all the love and support shown to my family and me. Onwards!"

Throughout his racing career, Hoy won 11 world titles and seven Olympic medals, making his Games debut in 2000 in Sydney, Australia. He is considered one of the greatest track sprinters of all time.

A little over three years ago, Anna Morris was working as a junior doctor, pursuing track cycling outside of her shifts. Now, she’s a three-time world champion, her most recent rainbow jersey coming after a shock victory over world record holder Chloé Dygert in the individual pursuit on Saturday night.

To say Morris was the underdog going into the final at the UCI World Championships would have been a just statement. The 29-year-old, who entered the Great Britain squad just two years ago, sat trackside earlier in the afternoon, and watched as Dygert, a four-time title holder in the event, smashed her own world record – taking it from 3:16.937, down more than a second to 3:15.663.

The American then led for more than two thirds of the final, until suddenly, the tables turned. The scoreboards at either end of Denmark’s Ballerup Super Arena flashed green beside Morris’s name with three laps to go. Spurred on by her coach and teammates, the Brit hung on, and won by three tenths of a second.

“When I could hear them screaming, I thought, ‘Maybe you’ve just got to dig really deep here, and then hold on to what you’ve got and see where you end up,’” she told Cycling Weekly. “I heard the guns go. They went at slightly different times, but they were so close together, I wasn’t sure whose had gone first.

"I had to take a little while to register what the scoreboard said, and I’m just in shock really. Chloé’s a phenomenal rider, especially in individual pursuit.”

Morris remembers watching on the television when Dygert set her previous best time four years ago. At that point, the Brit wasn’t long out of medical school – the place she discovered track cycling – and was halfway through a two-year stint as a doctor.

Having already won the team pursuit on Thursday, Morris's plan was simply to do the best she could. “If I could walk away with a personal best, I would have been ecstatic,” she said, “but to be world champion, I’m speechless.

“I was thinking yesterday, ‘I really wonder what it would feel like to walk away with two rainbow jerseys.’ Emma Finucane did it with the team sprint and the sprint. I wondered what it would feel like, not ever thinking that it would happen. It’s more than a dream, to be honest.”

One of those willing Morris across the line was Olympic gold medallist Sophie Capewell, who claimed her first individual Worlds medal earlier in the evening.

The 26-year-old won silver in the 500m time trial, breaking her own British record twice over the course of the day. The grimace on her face afterwards was testament to her effort in the final. As Capewell rolled around the track, she hissed air through gritted teeth. She then collapsed over her turbo trainer, and slowly spun the lactic acid out of her legs.

“I’m one of those athletes, I’ve got massive legs, so I produce a lot of lactic really quickly,” she smiled. “I’m doing it for the big strong girls. Carrying more muscle means you quickly switch on to lactic build up, and it’s really hard to get rid of it.”

Capewell’s silver came after disappointment the previous day, when she missed out on the podium in the individual sprint. “I had a choice today to be sad or to turn it into anger,” she said. “I tried to turn it into anger and get it all out on the bike, and I think it paid off.

“This year’s been big, but the last, I would say, five years for me have been massive. It’s been a big build-up, and a struggle at times, to get through not just grief issues [Capewell’s father, Nigel, died in 2021], but doubting myself, having misunderstandings – not in a bad way – with coaches, but trying to figure out the best way to work for me. It’s taken a long time to come around, but I’m glad to finish [my season] on a high.”

Iana Burlakova, competing as a neutral athlete, won the gold medal in the event, while Katy Marchant – Capewell’s gold-medal-winning teammate in the team sprint on Wednesday – finished third.

There further medals for GB on day four as Katie Archibald and Neah Evans snatched third in the Madison. The Scottish pair collected points early in the 120-lap event, but fell on the back foot when four other nations gained laps. It took a late surge from Archibald, winning the final sprint, to bunnyhop onto the podium.

“You know that line about how bronze medallists are happier than silver medallists?” Archibald said afterwards. “When you’re losing, there’s a redefinition of what’s a win. When it came down to those three [final] sprints, I was doing the maths thinking, ‘There’s a new plan here. We can still take something.’

“You have to make that decision of whether you’re going gold or whether you’re going bronze. If we had made it a little earlier, maybe it could have been different.”

The decisive moment came when Danish duo Amalie Dideriksen and Julie Leth attacked for a lap in the final third of the race. The home favourites remained out front for around 20 laps, cleaning up maximum points over two sprints, before gaining a lap on the field.

The move catapulted them to the top of the leaderboard, a scene that triggered a roar from the stands. The crowds later serenaded their new Madison champions with an a capella version of the Danish national anthem.

For Evans, who suffered with Epstein-Barr Virus earlier this year, there were positives to take away from the race. “We’re both hugely competitive, and we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want more,” she said. “We came here to win, but I think when you look at the build-up and all the circumstances behind it, you go, ‘Actually, we strung together a really good race.’”

That turbulent build-up also included a race back to fitness for Archibald, who broke her leg in multiple places back in June.

“This is my 10th World Championships and I’ve had quite an array of build-ups,” said Archibald. “I think until about this morning – I was very nervous this morning – I had no pressure. The power that that gives you, when you’re just kind of bopping around without carrying that knot in your chest for the weeks leading in, that’s something that I want to take forward; know that it will hurt your legs, but it doesn’t have to hurt your head.”

The evening finished with the final race of the men’s Omnium, which saw Belgium’s Lindsay de Vylder earn a first world title. GB’s Ethan Hayter, who won the event in 2021 and 2022, placed fifth.

“The Omnium’s a hard day, it’s all day, and when you’re not really 100%, you start to suffer a bit,” Hayter said. “I’ve not ridden the track since Paris [Olympics], so I think that’s quite a big reason.”

There was a guard of honour for Dan Bigham as he exited the track on Friday night, having raced the final four minutes of his journey with the Great Britain national squad.

The 33-year-old retired with a smile on his face and a bronze medal around his neck, won in the individual pursuit, the event he first raced at the UCI Track World Championships in 2018.

As he strolled towards his final round of media interviews, a handful of GB staff formed a tunnel, holding bike wheels in the air for him to walk beneath. It was a small tribute, but a touching one, for a rider who leaves the elite level with a world title, two European titles, and an Olympic silver medal.

“It was emotional, definitely emotional,” Bigham told Cycling Weekly post-race. “When I was warming up, I didn’t feel great, but I’ve done enough of these damn things that you drag yourself kicking and screaming through it. It’s literally the last four minutes I’ll ride at this level, on this stage, and you just look up and you’re like, ‘It’s pretty damn cool.’”

It was fitting, too, that Bigham’s bronze medal ride-off would come against Charlie Tanfield, his long-time teammate and career nemesis in the individual pursuit. The pair finished their final dance with a back-slapping hug, to the applause of the Danish crowd.

“I’ve ridden countless IPs against Chaz, and it’s probably 50-50. I should probably check back and find out for sure,” Bigham said. “The first one was at Nationals, in 2017, we qualified one-two, [Ethan] Hayter was third, one-two in the final. The next year, he kicked my head in. The year after that, he kicked my head in. In 2020, it started to swing the other way, but it’s been tit for tat the last seven years.”

Over the course of that time, Bigham’s relationship with the national team has swung back and forth, too. He parted ways with the track squad in 2018, after his debut IP appearance, when he was told he’d have to choose between his passion for engineering and being a rider. Four years later, he returned to the fold, guiding the team pursuit squad to the world title.

“It’s a shame that when you exit, you’re at the fastest you’ll ever go, the most knowledgeable you’ll ever be, the fittest you’ll ever be,” he said. “But also, the game’s moving forward.”

In the moments before giving his interview, Bigham hung over the fence in the track infield, willing on Josh Charlton in the gold medal ride. The 21-year-old, 12 years his junior, broke the world record in qualifying, but lost out on the title against Italy’s Jonathan Milan, who himself bettered the benchmark in the final, clocking 3:59.153.

“The level’s gone up. It keeps going up. It’s not going to slow down. Everyone keeps asking, ‘Where’s the limit?’ And there isn’t one. It just keeps going,” Bigham said, smiling. “I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys in the next [Olympic] cycle are doing .56/57 [seconds]. It’ll probably happen.”

It was characteristic of the Brit, a man driven by the pursuit of speed, not to lament his own retirement, but rather be excited by the next generation. He, too, hopes his story – the tale of an engineering master’s graduate who went to the Olympics and won a silver medal – will leave a legacy.

“Physiologically, I’m not shit, but I’m also not a specimen, and that’s what it takes to be at this level,” he said.

And yet, in a sport of other-worldly talent, Bigham proved that mortals can graft their way to the top with tireless dedication. “I hope I can champion that,” he said. “Hopefully I can be an inspiration, nonetheless, to all those people, especially at the younger ages, because you can influence so much over time.

“The biggest learning I’ve found is that aerobic power, which is the biggest thing for every cycling event, takes time. Not just a little bit of time, but years and years and years of building up,” he continued. “There’s nothing better than when you’re 18 to have that in front of you to know that’s the case. When you’re 33, I don’t have the years in front of me to do that.”

Instead, Bigham is dedicating the next years of his life to helping others get faster. He’ll start a new role as head of engineering with WorldTour team Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe next year, and already he’s brimming with ideas to test out. Earlier this week, he sent off a 6,500-word project specification, outlining just some of his plans.

“There are certain things in engineering that I’ve wanted to commit to in my whole cycling career, but I haven’t had the time because of the selfishness of wanting to ride my own bike,” he said. “Now, freeing up 20-30 hours a week is going to give me a lot more time to action those engineering ideas, and to do them before other people do, and hopefully bring a whole lot of performance to everybody else.

“All the knowledge I’ve accumulated, it’s so much easier for me to pass that on than it was for me to learn that. And that’s part of the art of life, isn’t it? People have mentors, they learn from those who’ve gone before them, and that’s the role I’m going into, that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

And so, with his black and fluorescent pink Pinarello bike in tow, Bigham closed a chapter in the wide-ranging book of his career. The next one, he hopes, will be equally as exciting.

Great Britain’s men’s sprint team are racing at this week's UCI Track World Championship on bike designs once used by Sir Jason Kenny and Sir Chris Hoy.

Three of the squad’s four riders are competing in Denmark on UK Sports Institute (UKSI) bikes, built by British Cycling’s in-house research and development team for the London 2012 Olympics.

The design itself dates back to 2002, when it was debuted at the Commonwealth Games. Since then, the bike has been upgraded, with those ridden today understood to be the second iteration, or MK2, used three Olympic cycles ago.

“They are from, I believe, London 2012,” said Harry Ledingham-Horn, who finished fourth in the keirin on Thursday. The 20-year-old is part of a trio of academy sprinters making their debut at the championships, alongside Hayden Norris and Marcus Hiley, who are both also using the 12-year-old framesets.

“It’s actually an upgrade for us. We were riding BTs before, which are even older bikes,” Ledingham-Horn said. “About six weeks ago, we got upgraded to UKSI. It’s been a pleasant upgrade. They’re good bikes, to be fair. They are old, but we make the most out of them.”

Ledingham-Horn, Norris and Hiley are all part of GB’s podium potential programme, a tier below the elite squad. Riders on GB’s podium programme, the elite squad, are typically given Hope-Lotus bikes, introduced for the Tokyo Olympics, and upgraded for the recent Paris Games.

The keirin was won on Thursday by Japan’s Kento Yamasaki, riding a Toray bike produced for the Paris Olympics with a price tag of £108,000.

Asked if Ledingham-Horn felt at a disadvantage on an older model to his opponents, the 20-year-old said: “There’s probably a difference, but it doesn’t really concern me. The coaches and the team made that decision. I don’t think anyone expected me to get as far as I did today. We get the bikes we’re given because we’re not as good as the podium guys. Once we do get as good, we’ll get given the better bikes, so there’s no hard feelings.”

The majority of Great Britain’s squad are using Hope-Lotus HBT bikes at this year’s Worlds, previously only ridden at the Paris Olympics. The women’s team sprint and team pursuit squads rode the new models to gold medals earlier this week.

Two-time Olympic champion Katie Archibald will return to racing next week at the UCI Track World Championships, her first competition since breaking her leg in June.

The 30-year-old fractured her tibia and fibula, dislocated her ankle, and tore two ligaments when she fell on a step in her garden a month before the Paris Olympics. She was forced to forego what would have been her third Games, instead dedicating herself to rest and recovery.

Almost four months on from the accident, Archibald has now been selected in the Great Britain squad for the Track World Championships in Ballerup, Denmark, scheduled for 16-20 October. She will join her teammates in the women's endurance squad who won bronze in the team pursuit in Paris – Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jess Roberts – as well as Madison silver medallist Neah Evans, Meg Barker and Sophie Lewis.

"I'm thriving on the bike," Archibald wrote on Instagram last month. "You'll just have to wait and see."

Also part of the GB squad for this month's World Championships are the Olympic women's team sprint champions Katy Marchant, Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane, the only British track gold medallists from Paris. The trio will compete for medals across the sprint disciplines, with Finucane out to defend her title in the individual sprint.

Olympic team pursuit silver medallists Ethan Hayter, Ollie Wood, Charlie Tanfield and Dan Bigham headline the men's endurance squad for the event. Bigham will compete in the individual pursuit at the championships, turning the final pedalstrokes in his journey with the national squad, before he turns to focus on his new role as head of engineering at WorldTour team Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

Among the experienced riders, three 20-year-olds are set for their elite Worlds debuts in Denmark. Ineos Grenadiers rider Josh Tarling, a double junior European track champion, is part of the men’s endurance squad alongside Noah Hobbs of Groupama-FDJ; while three-time national champion Harry Ledingham-Horn will compete in the sprint events.

Double Paris medallist Jack Carlin has opted to forego this year's World Championships, as have his Olympic-silver-medal-winning team sprint partners Hamish Turnbull and Ed Lowe.

"While some riders rest after a heavy season, this gives other riders an opportunity to step up and stake a claim for a podium squad place," said the squad's performance director, Stephen Park.

"The world championships after the Olympic Games is always an exciting mix as our Olympic medalists are riding high from a successful Games and will hopefully end the season with some more medals to add to their palmares," Park continued.

The full 23-rider GB squad for the UCI Track World Championships is below. The competition begins inside the Ballerup Super Arena next Wednesday 16 October, and runs until Sunday afternoon.

Women’s Endurance
Katie Archibald
Meg Barker
Neah Evans
Josie Knight
Sophie Lewis
Anna Morris
Jess Roberts

Men’s endurance
Dan Bigham
Rhys Britton
Josh Charlton
Ethan Hayter
Noah Hobbs
Mark Stewart
Charlie Tanfield
Josh Tarling
Ollie Wood

Women’s sprint
Sophie Capewell
Emma Finucane
Katy Marchant
Lowri Thomas

Men’s sprint
Harry Ledingham-Horn
Hayden Norris
Joe Truman
Marcus Hiley (travelling reserve)

The Great Britain Cycling Team has chosen not to field a squad at the European Road Championships this week, British Cycling has confirmed. 

The event is set to take place from 11-15 September, and will be held in Limburg, in the Belgian region of Flanders. 

At last year's Championships, Great Britain won the men's time trial, thanks to Josh Tarling; the squad also won a silver medal in the women's time trial through Anna Henderson, and finished fourth in the women's road race with Pfeiffer Georgi. Zoe Bäckstedt won the under-23 women's time trial. 

In a statement shared with Cycling Weekly, British Cycling cited an "incredibly dense" calendar and a need for riders to rest in their rationale for not sending a team to Belgium. 

"Unfortunately, GBCT [Great Britain Cycling Team] will not be fielding a team for the upcoming UEC Road European Championships this year for a number of reasons," the squad's performance director, Stephen Park, said. 

"This summer's racing calendar is incredibly dense, plus the added complexity of our riders' pro team responsibilities as well as vital rest and recuperation post major events.

"We have recently had riders compete at the Olympic Games, Tour de l'Avenir and Tour of Britain, with the UCI Road World Championships coming up, giving our riders plenty of opportunities to show their abilities and fans to follow their performances."

The European Road Championships were first introduced to the calendar in 1995, with elite racing categories only added in 2016. In the past eight editions, there has been no elite British representation on three occasions, including as recently as 2022 and 2021. 

Skipping the event this year will mean Great Britain have missed three European Road Championships in four years. 

"The UEC Road European Championships is an event we value and have had great success at in the past, and we look forward to competing again in future," Park said.

The championships open on Wednesday with the time trials, in which former champions Stefan Küng (Switzerland) and Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands) are set to compete. The road races will take place at the weekend, first with the women's elite event on Saturday, followed by the men's on Sunday. 

World champion Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands), Mads Pedersen (Denmark), Jasper Philipsen (Belgium), Lorena Wiebes (Netherlands) and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Denmark) are all on the start lists. 

It was the bombshell that only a handful of people knew was coming. The announcement on Monday morning of track sprinter Matthew Richardson's switch from Australia to Great Britain came as a surprise to many, even his housemate, but marked the culmination of months of secret conversations, and the beginning of a new chapter. 

A little over a week had passed since Richardson won two silvers and a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, dressed in green and gold. Then came the press releases, and an Instagram post, the 25-year-old hailing "the end of an era" and his shock decision to change his racing nationality.

That decision, Richardson told Cycling Weekly, was one he first truly considered at the end of 2023.

"Last December, I sat down and had a good think about it," he said. "I've always talked about doing it, but talking about doing it and actually doing it are two completely different things. I decided let's just do it. Let's risk everything and try and ride for GB. That's the decision I came to.

"I approached [GB head coach] Jon Norfolk in Adelaide when they came over for the World Cup [in Febraury], and just started the process. I basically just sat him down, asked him what he thought, and if it was a possibility to come race for GB after the Games."

As it turned out, it was. Richardson's conversation with Norfolk got the ball rolling on a formality that took months to complete. Switching allegiances is not unprecedented in cycling, and is permitted in cases where a rider loses their civil nationality, was a minor when they first applied for a licence, or holds dual citizenship. In 2022 for example, Mikhail Yakovlev and Pavel Sivakov both switched from Russia to Israel and France respectively.  

"I had to lodge the application to the UCI three months ago," Richardson explained. "Then you just wait, I guess. I was very clear with them that I didn't want Australia to be notified before the Olympics, so we agreed on a date that it was going to happen.

"The Olympics was the easiest bit because everyone was so distracted with racing. The hard bit was living with one of my teammates, Tom [Cornish], at the time, all year basically, and trying to move my entire life to the other side of the world and him not finding out."

Richardson broke the news to Cornish on Monday morning, moments before the official announcement. "Unfortunately, he had already been told, which is a bit of shame. I had everything planned out," he said. 

"I called each one of them [my teammates] and apologised for them not being able to hear it from me first. A few were disappointed, a few understood and wished me the best. It was actually alright. Those conversations are never going to be easy to have."

Born in Maidstone, Kent, Richardson moved to Australia with his family when he was nine years old. He took up cycling as a teenager, having previously been a gymnast, and first represented Australia at the Junior Track World Championships in 2017. Throughout his racing career, he has always maintained dual citizenship, and kept his British passport. 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly in 2022, Richardson said the thought of racing for GB had "crossed my mind", but nobody had ever asked him to switch. "Chris Hoy said a few of the British coaches may be kicking themselves they never picked me up earlier," he said at the time.   

Now, almost two years on, the 25-year-old revealed he had been thinking of representing GB ever since his first Junior Worlds. "This is something that I wanted to do for a long time," he said. "The absolute motivator for me to move to GB is purely because it is my dream to race for Great Britain.

"When I was a young lad, I watched Chris Hoy win Olympic gold medals in Beijing and a moment like that really sticks with a young lad. Everything else that comes off that, whether it's funding, support, equipment, is just an added bonus to the real motivator that was just a kid with a dream wanting to race his bike for Great Britain."

Richardson won't have to wait long for his first race in GB colours, either. Although he is ineligible for October's Track World Championships and February's European Championships, as per UCI rules, he has been given the green light to race the Track Champions League, which begins at the end of November. 

"I'm super excited about it," the former sprint league winner said. "It's going to be nice to kind of ease into it a little bit with Champs League and have a bit of fun. It's also an added bonus the last two rounds are in London, so it'll be my first British home crowd."

From then, he'll work under the tutelage of one of his "heroes", current GB sprint coach and seven-time Olympic champion Jason Kenny, towards the LA Games in 2028. "It's amazing," Richardson said. "I just sit back, pinch myself and think, 'What is my life?' It's going to be fantastic.

"There's obviously no secret that GB have a high level of support for the riders, and obviously I'll look to utilise that to become a better rider and a better athlete."

Former world champion track sprinter Matthew Richardson has successfully changed his racing nationality and will join the Great Britain cycling team. 

The 25-year-old was born in Kent, but moved to Australia when he was nine, and has lived there ever since. A former gymnast, he has represented Australia in track cycling since he was a junior, winning the team sprint world title in 2022, and three medals at the recent Paris Olympic Games: silver in both the sprint and keirin, and bronze in the team sprint. 

Richardson is considered to be one of the best track sprinters in the world, second only to the Netherlands' Harrie Lavreysen. He will now be coached within the British set-up by Jason Kenny, Team GB's most successful Olympian ever. 

"I have made the decision to pack up my entire life and move halfway across the world to begin the next chapter in my cycling career," Richardson said. "It is with a sense of excitement and renewal I announce I have joined the Great British Cycling Team.

"Switching nationality was a difficult decision, and not one I took lightly. It was a personal choice, made after careful consideration of my career and future. I deeply respect Australia and the Aus Cycling Team and it will always be a part of who I am. As this new chapter in my life begins, I would like to sincerely thank the coaches and support staff who have worked with me over many years in Australia.  

"But this decision is about following my passion and pushing myself to new heights. This isn't about leaving something behind, but about embracing a new chapter in my journey and chasing a dream, a dream that is to race for the county which I was born in."

Since moving to Australia, Richardson has maintained dual citizenship, keeping both British and Australian passports. 

Due to UCI rules in the nationality swap process, he is not eligible to compete at the 2024 World Championships this October or the 2025 European Championships in February. 

He will, however, be a key part of the sprint squad in the run-up to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, alongside recent team sprint silver medallists Jack Carlin, Hamish Turnbull and Ed Lowe. 

Stephen Park, the British team's performance director, said the sprint squad continues to go from "strength to strength" with the addition of Richardson. 

"I am excited to see what his presence adds to the talent we already have as we start to turn our attention to the new four-year cycle towards LA 2028," he said. 

In a statement shared by Aus Cycling, performance manager Jesse Korf said the announcement of Richardson's switch was "disappointing and came as a surprise". 

"We also understand that the desire to compete for a country one was born in can bring forth strong emotions," Korf said.

Over the last three years, Team GB track cyclist Mark Stewart has probably taken on more professions than any other rider inside the Paris Olympics velodrome. 

He has worked as a dog walker, a babysitter, a lifeguard, and now, after a last-minute call-up for Saturday's Madison event, he has another role to add to his CV: Olympian. 

The 28-year-old was never expecting to race his bike in Paris. He travelled to the Olympics as a reserve in the track squad, ready to be called upon if disaster struck. That moment came when Ethan Hayter pulled out of the Madison with a muscle strain, suffered when he fell out of his saddle in Wednesday’s team pursuit final. 

"I found out this morning," Stewart said. "I expected it. I thought, 'Right, there's a chance I'll get the call up here.' So I was ready. I took the role seriously.

"[Racing] is a horrendous mix of the worst nerves you've ever had, and confidence, because we're high-performance athletes, and we've got this amazing support from British Cycling. You do go up there confident, but at the same time, you've got this contrasting thing of being the most nervous you've ever been in your life."

Paired with his teammate and friend Ollie Wood, Stewart finished 9th in the race, a result that left him "gutted". Still, the Olympics are only the third championship event the Scot has done with the national squad since he was dropped by British Cycling in 2020, shortly after the Covid pandemic was declared. 

"When British Cycling kicked me off and dropped me from the programme, it was actually beautiful circumstances, although I didn’t know it at the time," he said. "I just got out to New Zealand to visit my fiancée, Emma [Cumming], Covid happened, New Zealand locked down their borders, and I ended up staying for two years. 

"British Cycling supported me financially when they kicked me off because of the times, Covid, so I was able to train for the first year full-time. For the second year I was there, the money ran out. So I needed to get jobs."

In the months that followed, Stewart combined his training with up to 50-hour working weeks, on occasion waking up at 3am to ride his bike. 

"I started off babysitting and dog walking for a close family that I know, and I loved that, and I found a lot of purpose in that," he said. "I loved working for Taku Wairua, a self development programme, where we went into low socio-economic schools, and I taught kids over 10 weeks about their values and who they are as humans.

"I was also a lifeguard team leader, and I had five or six young lifeguards I was looking after, and I wanted to show them that I could get my training done before work started at 5:30am. I think they thought I was lucky being an athlete, but I wanted to show them it was a conscious decision, and if you want something, you can make it happen."

Stewart re-entered the British Cycling fray early last year, when he raced at a Nations Cup meet in Canada, his first event for GB in over three years. He then went on to compete at the World Championships in Glasgow, riding with Wood in the Madison, and earning the silver medal.  

Not expecting a call-up for the Olympics, Stewart said he was "over the moon" to be asked to be the reserve in the men's endurance squad. 

"It's super-special, to be honest," he said. "I joined the British Cycling programme in 2014, and spent five years trying to go to Tokyo. The opposite happened. They kicked me off. So even just to work my way back into the squad and compete at the Worlds in Glasgow last year was phenomenal. And then to get called up to be a reserve, to play a support role for my close friends, my teammates, was amazing."

Now, he said, his focus is already on the next Olympics, scheduled for Los Angeles in 2028. 

Does Stewart hope to be there? "Absolutely," he said. "The beautiful thing about Madison is all the ages, shapes, everyone's out there. I spoke to Roger Kluge, and I think he's knocking on the door of 40 [years old], and I said, 'Are you going to retire this year?' and he said, 'No! I’m going to go for a couple more years.' If he can go a couple more years, so can I."

For the tens of thousands of pounds invested into kit development, Team GB's track sprinters are wearing £11 golf gloves at the Paris Olympics.

Emma Finucane and Katy Marchant wore white gloves in the keirin final on Thursday evening, earning third and fourth place respectively. Images seen afterwards showed their gloves were golf-specific ones, made by TaylorMade, but with the branding covered up for competition. 

Cycling Weekly matched the gloves with a pair available online, TaylorMade's 'Stratus Tech', which retail for £10.99, and are filed on the UCI's approved equipment list. 

Finucane first began wearing the gloves at last year's World Championships in Glasgow, where she won gold in the individual sprint. 

"I think I got them from the store," the 21-year-old previously told Cycling Weekly. "I was like, 'Hey, do you have any gloves?' They're actually golf gloves. 

"British Cycling have them. For the keirin, you usually wear gloves. They're actually quite nice."

In fact, wearing non-cycling-specific gloves is not a new phenomenon in British Cycling, but a tradition that dates back at least two decades. 

Former GB sprinter Matt Crampton, a European keirin champion who now coaches Australia's sprint squad, said riders within the British programmes are typically responsible for providing their own gloves and shoes. Crampton and his teammates opted for baseball gloves. 

"I think Jason [Kenny] used to wear Easton baseball gloves," he said. "I think we did a Nations Cup in LA, this would have been way back, in 2006 or something like that, and we bought Easton gloves. It was those gloves, and then the golf gloves were a good substitute. 

"They're thin, and you want to be close to the handlebars. You don't want something really spongy where you don't have that direct contact. You'll see it's either no gloves, or very thin gloves, and very thin socks as well, so you can feel every sensation from the bike and from the wood.

"There's maybe an R&D [research and development] opportunity," Crampton added with a smile. 

Track-cycling-specific gloves do exist, and are often worn by keirin racers in Japan. “When riders would go to Japan and do the invitation keirin, they’d get the Tanabe leather gloves. I ran those for a long time as well, white leather, and some of them had a carbon knuckle," Crampton said. 

"Obviously there's more contact in Japan, and if you crash, you're on concrete, so there's a protective element. I remember sending a box of Japanese keirin gloves to [GB coach] Helen Scott for the riders. But they're a bit harder to get, and they're a bit expensive."

New Zealand's Ellesse Andrews were track-cycling-specific gloves when she became Olympic keirin champion on Thursday. The 24-year-old wore gloves made by 5bling, which are available on the brand's website from $65 (£50.90). 

"We'd use Baden, softball or baseball gloves, thin ones," said Crampton. "I think Decathlon used to do a horse riding glove that was also a thin, tight leather glove. I remember buying those from Decathlon in Stockport a few times. They'd have cost £10 or something."

You may have already noticed from the Instagram videos, but when a British cyclist wins a medal at the Paris Olympics, they receive a guard of honour back at the team’s lodgings. They walk over a Team GB mat, and into a wide room, clad with Union Jacks. It doesn't look like the cramped apartment blocks of the Olympic village. That's because it isn't. 

While many of Team GB's athletes are staying in the village, the majority of the cycling squad is staying out of town, in a hotel near Versailles. 

According to the squad's performance director, Stephen Park, this is for "logistical" reasons. 

"At this Games, as with a number of sports, many of our key cycling venues are situated outside of Paris, so it makes logistical sense to stay in closer proximity to them, as well as giving our riders easy access to road training."

The Olympic village is located northeast of the French capital, in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis. Most of the cycling events have taken place southwest of the city, with the mountain bike course in Élancourt, and the velodrome and BMX racing track in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, both 20 miles away from the village. 

The only members of Team GB's cycling squad who did stay in the village were the BMX freestylers. Their events took place in Place de la Concorde, at the bottom of the Champs-Élysées, only six miles away. 

When Kieran Reilly won his silver medal in the freestyle park, he planned to celebrate back at his shared accommodation. "There has been a little dessert bar at the village I've been looking at all week, so I'm going to treat myself to one of them," he smiled. 

In addition to the logistical reasons cited by Park, staying outside of the village also means GB's cyclists can isolate from other athletes, with the fear of Covid still present. The squad can likewise bring in their own chefs, rather than rely on the food in the village, which swimmer Adam Peaty claimed is contaminated with worms. 

"The catering isn't good enough for the level the athletes are expected to perform," Peaty told the i. "I like my fish and people are finding worms in the fish. It's just not good enough. The standard, we're looking at the best of the best in the world, and we're not feeding them the best."

Park said GB's cycling squad are still "great advocates for the Olympic movement", and have enjoyed staying in the village in previous editions of the Games. He added that the British Olympic Association [BOA] has been "incredibly supportive" of the squad's decision to stay outside of the village. 

"[The BOA] worked hard to create a high-quality performance environment for our athletes, to support them in delivering their best performance while also feeling connected to the wider Team GB," Park said. 

“It‘s really nice,” said GB track cyclist Ethan Hayter. “We’ve got a hotel to ourselves, surrounded by the British cyclists and support staff. Everyone can relax together and wind down.”

GB's cyclists are not the only ones sleeping away from the village. Many of those riding in the track events this week are staying near the velodrome, with some in official hotels provided by the Olympics in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. The French squad have been put up in a large château. 

Team USA's basketball players have been staying in a four-star Marriott hotel in central Paris. According to a report in the Daily Mail, this is so they can sleep in longer, sturdier beds, rather than the cardboard ones in the village. 

Ethan Hayter swapped his skinsuit and helmet during the Omnium at the Paris Olympics, because he was getting "way too hot", he said. 

The Brit, a former world champion in the four-race event, finished eighth inside the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome on Thursday, despite winning the elimination race on the night. 

During the opening two races – the scratch and tempo races – Hayter wore a white helmet with a mirrored visor, and a skinsuit that appeared to have rubberised panels on the forearms and back. He then switched to a yellow and orange helmet, and a lighter fabric skinsuit for the elimination and points races. 

"I really didn't feel myself," the 25-year-old said. "We've got special Olympic kit that we roll out every few years, and I was just getting way too hot. Obviously, I'm hot now, still. When you're going really well, you cool off easily and you do everything well. When you're not going well, just everything spirals."

Temperatures inside France's national velodrome have been around 30°C this week, with hot and humid conditions in the capital. 

"I changed into a slightly cooler suit, and a helmet I'm used to wearing," Hayter explained. "It's just our normal Lazer helmet. It actually sticks out for the Madison, so we can see each other, but we didn't have a spare one for the Omnium. I think it looks good actually, the yellow. It helps my mum see me in the crowd."

In the time trial, Josh Tarling wore a similar rubberised skinsuit, developed specially for Team GB at the Games, which he said was "fast" but made him "feel like I'm in overshoes". 

Hayter struggled in the Omnium, saying afterwards that he "didn't have the acceleration" and "didn't ride it great technically". 

"Normally, the Omnium's my forte. In elite Omniums, since Tokyo [Olympics], I've won every single one, to be honest, without blowing my own trumpet. Normally I get better each race. I don't know, I just didn't feel myself," he said. "It was obviously really hard yesterday, going that deep and emotionally as well afterwards to recover."

On Wednesday night, Hayter won silver in the team pursuit, slipping from his saddle in the final lap, but managing to stay upright to finish across the line. 

Due to his record in the Omnium, being both a two-time world and European champion, the Brit found himself heavily marked across Thursday's event, which was won by France's Benjamin Thomas. 

"I've been the favourite for every Omnium for the last few years. I'm very much used to it. Normally I take the race on and dictate the race, get everyone playing my game, but today I was on the back foot and getting my head kicked," he said. "I definitely didn't want to be passive, that's not my style. Normally, in the Omnium, I take it on and batter everyone's heads in."

Hayter will next ride the Madison, alongside Ollie Wood, but said he is "a little bit" concerned about his performance after his Omnium result. "I'll ride [the Madison] unless I’m ill," he said. "It's unlikely. I should ride." 

The Madison will take place on Saturday 10 August at 16:59 UK time. 

It might not have been the medal he had hoped for, but with silver around his neck, Dan Bigham acted out the denouement of one of cycling's most inspiring stories, one that almost saw the curtain come down early.

There was a moment last Friday when the 32-year-old feared his Olympic dream was over. It happened in an open training session, inside the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome on a sunny morning. Bigham had gone eight years without crashing on the track, until he swung up in a team pursuit change, and collided with another rider who was rolling around higher up the boards. Both fell hard and slid down onto the apron.

"It was about five metres away there," Bigham recalled, pointing to the banking, moments after winning silver in the team pursuit. "I was in a lot of pain thinking, simply put, I fucked it. I crashed at 65km/h, my shoulder was not in a great way. Thankfully, I didn't break any bones, but my biggest thought was that I've let these guys down."

In the days after, he said, movement became a struggle. Simply lifting his arm to brush his teeth had him wincing in pain. He turned up to qualifying on Monday with a bandage over his right shoulder, and was helped into his skinsuit by a member of the team's staff. He then sat out of the first round against Denmark, before returning to the quartet in the final – alongside Ethan Hayter, Ethan Vernon and Charlie Tanfield – where he dug deep, fought through the pain, and took the Australians down to the wire. 

"I was the most nervous I've ever been," he said. "The start was a big factor. Basically, I've got a lot of pain through the joint, I've done some damage to it, and starting really hurts. I threw myself out of the gates as hard as I could, and had a great start." 

As the effort went on, though, he said the injury "cost performance". "I can't lie. I wasn't my absolute best today. I wasn't my absolute best ever since the crash, and that's frustrating, for sure," Bigham said. 

"Yes, we can't stand on the top step and say we're Olympic champions and everything that goes with that, but it's absolutely no regrets of how we've gone about it. It's been a pretty epic few years."

For Bigham in particular, the path to the Olympics has been a winding one, a dream that at many points seemed impossible.

A master's graduate in motorsport engineering, the Brit became famous in cycling circles for his aerodynamics knowledge and focus on innovation. He first entered the national team fold in 2018, when he raced the individual pursuit at the Track World Championships, but when discussions took place about getting onto the Olympic programme afterwards, he was told he would have to choose between being an engineer or a rider. He decided to pursue both, away from British Cycling.

Until recently, Bigham's cycling career had been one side of a double life, the side he does for free. He has always made his living in other jobs, and still only 32, has an enviable and wide-reaching CV; He worked in Formula 1 for Mercedes, started his own aero products business called Wattshop, wrote a book on reverse engineering in sport and, over the past few years, has worked as a performance engineer for WorldTour team Ineos Grenadiers.

At the same time, he's dedicated himself to cycling. When he parted ways with British Cycling in 2018, he made it his mission to beat the national squad in a team pursuit, and did so with a group of his friends in HUUB-Wattbike, coached by Mehdi Kordi, who now heads up the Dutch sprint squad.

"When he came onto the scene, everyone, particularly in the national set-up, was talking about how the whole game was going to catch up with him," Kordi told Cycling Weekly. "[They said] his engineering advantage would be taken away from him, and he was just going to go back to being a nobody. In the end, he's turned out to be one of the best British pursuiters we've ever had."

Bigham has since become a world champion, a double European champion, holder of the World Hour Record, and now an Olympic silver medallist.

"Rather than people catching up with the engineering, he caught up with people's physiology," Kordi said. "He's trained hard and he's earned his spot. As someone who worked with him before, and as a friend, I watch him with immense pride." 

Since the early days, as he went from competition to competition, Bigham was always generous with his ideas. He'd watch other riders inside the velodrome, those he was racing against, and offer them tips on how they could go faster. For the Tokyo Olympics, he took up a job with the Danish team pursuit squad, and helped engineer their way to a silver medal. 

In training, he'd slot in with the Danish quartet, and once rode a sub-3:50 effort, becoming the first British rider to do so. "I thought that was the pinnacle of my career," he told the BBC. More was still to come. 

"When I first got to know him, all we talked about was going to the Olympics," Kordi said. "As you can imagine, HUUB-Wattbike was a vehicle to at least get them into the set-up and go from there. It may have, at least, gone to the back of his mind, but he and the rest of the team definitely talked about the Olympics." 

Now, Bigham is an Olympian. He's also a professional cyclist for the first time in his life, having taken three months unpaid leave from Ineos, and picked up a short-term athlete grant to fund his Paris campaign. 

"I think it's one of cycling's…" Kordi began, before correcting himself, "one of sport's great stories, for a number of reasons. Number one, in this day and age, he's an amateur. For some people, they scoff at that idea. They go, 'Yeah, but he's got a job in cycling and this and that.' The definition of an amateur is that you don't do that craft for a living, and he doesn't. He gets his money elsewhere. He is, by definition, the last amateur, in my opinion, in professional sport.

"He's the embodiment of what the sport is. He's very open with his ideas, he shares, and if he takes a loss, he holds his hand up and just goes, 'I wasn't fast enough.' They're all admirable qualities." 

True to his character, that's what Bigham did after the team pursuit in Paris. With his teammates standing in earshot, he told the press that his injury "could have been the difference between gold and silver today", a thought that was quickly swatted away. 

He then strolled through the media zone, the last of his teammates to leave, smiling and soaking in his first, and likely last Olympic experience. It was a life-long dream accomplished, one that was so almost derailed days before, but ended with him pulling up along the banking, hugging his wife, Joss Lowden, herself a former Hour Record holder, and sharing a moment with their son, as an Olympic silver medallist. 

How does he reflect on his journey? "I've been asked that question in different forms many times," Bigham said. "I think a lot of things, really, justifications to the decisions I've made. I've been criticised, I've been lauded for things. 

"I just think in general it has been an awesome journey, and a story that I'm very pleased with even more so since becoming a father. I want to be able to hopefully, one day, tell my son and just be proud of it."

Twenty-year-old Ed Lowe had never been to a championship event before he raced in the men's team sprint at the Paris Olympics, and won a silver medal.

The youngest member of the trio – by five years – he was only brought onto the elite programme within British Cycling 10 months ago. At the time of the last Olympics, he was still racing in the junior ranks, with Paris barely a dream in his mind. 

"When I got told that I was going to be in the Olympic team, it was a bit overwhelming," said Lowe. Now he's a silver medallist, and an example of the up-and-coming talent within the British men's sprint squad. 

With Jack Carlin and fellow debutant Hamish Turnbull in tow, the 20-year-old ripped out of the start gates to earn an honourable second place at the Games on Tuesday night. Why honourable? Well, for a simple reason: their opponents were the Dutch, a trio that's so generationally strong, they have won four out of the last five World Championships, and broke the world record twice in Paris on their way to gold. 

Still, beneath the medal result, lay an interesting statistic. Between them, Dutchmen Roy van den Berg, Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland had an average age of 31. The average of GB's trio was only 24. 

"You bring the age down," 27-year-old Carlin smiled to Lowe, before turning to face the press. "I think these two boys [Lowe and Turnbull], in their first Olympics, they've both stepped up massively and dealt with the pressures that come with the Olympic Games, which isn't easy. I think that we executed three amazing rides, and we've reaped the rewards of that."

Between 2008 and 2016, GB dominated the three-lap team sprint at the Games, led by Chris Hoy and then Jason Kenny, both of whom have since received knighthoods. And yet, for all the supremacy of the glory days, Lowe, Carlin and Turnbull went the fastest any British trio has ever gone in Paris, clocking 41.814 seconds in the final. 

"It's on the up," Lowe said, asked by Cycling Weekly about the state of British men's track sprinting. "It's my birthday in two weeks, and I'll be 21. We're still quite a young team. We've still got a lot of progression ahead of us, training hard. We'll enjoy this, but we've still got our sights on getting one grade higher the next Games."

When an athlete wins a silver medal, there's typically a hint of disappointment in their voice, a sense of what-could-have-been. No such thing was notable in GB's trio. Lowe was "ecstatic" with the result, Turnbull "buzzing". Against a team like the Netherlands, silver felt like gold.

"That Dutch team's in a league of their own," said Carlin. "You look at that, breaking the world record, and they were seven tenths [of a second] ahead of us, which is miles in terms of performance in team sprint. But we executed three amazing rides. Really clean, really composed." 

In four years' time, when the LA Olympics roll round, the average age of the current Dutch trio will be 35. Lowe alone will be 24, and likely still one of the youngest members of the squad. 

GB's sprinting past shows that periods of dominance do not last forever. The Dutch rule, too, will likely end. And when it does, waiting in the wings is the new guard of British track sprinting, developing with promise, under the watchful eye of its old guard. 

"The lads did a really good job," said Kenny, a seven-time Olympic champion, and the current trio's coach. "I think as a team it's really exciting. That's the best thing about the day for me."

It was a silver medal that was won, not a gold that was lost. The future is bright. 

The Australian men's team pursuit squad broke the world record in the event's first round at the Paris Olympics, and will face Team GB in the final on Wednesday. 

The quartet of Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O’Brien clocked a time of 3:40.730, taking a staggering 1.3 seconds off the previous benchmark, set by Italy at the Tokyo Olympics. 

GB had come close to Italy’s record of 3:42.032 in their first round heat against Denmark, the world champions, when they rode a 3:42.151.

The two nations will face off in the team pursuit final on 7 August at 17:33 UK time. Australia have not won gold in the men's event since 2004, before a period of domination from the Brits that saw them win the title at the next three Olympics.

"I think it will be fast tomorrow," said Welsford. "It might not be as fast, because we had a bit of a slipstream coming into the last two laps, but I think, with the conditions again and the level of the Olympic final, you're going to find that extra boost.

"The Great Britain boys, I know them all well, they're really good racers, and they really come out flying for these rides. It'll be a good fight tomorrow." 

Australia's team pursuit world record in Paris came moments before the Dutch men's team sprint squad became the first ever to go below 41 seconds in the three-lap event. 

The trio of Roy van den Berg, Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland broke their previous world record earlier in the evening with a time of 41.191, before bettering it again in the final with a 40.949, beating the Brits to the gold medal. 

The track in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines witnessed five world records on Monday night, all in the women's team sprint. New Zealand, Germany and Great Britain all took it in turns to beat the benchmark, with the latter breaking it three times on their path to the gold medal. 

With its wide track, the French national velodrome is considered one of the fastest in the world. The conditions in Paris have also been favourable for world-record-breaking, with hot and humid weather keeping the air pressure low. 

Team GB rode without Dan Bigham in the team pursuit first round, the 32-year-old opting to sit it out after what he described as a "pretty big crash" last week.

Bigham came down during an open training session on Friday afternoon, when he swung up the track in a team pursuit change and collided with another rider. He rode the qualifying heat on Monday, but was replaced by Charlie Tanfield in the first round, in a quartet that also included Ethan Hayter, Ethan Vernon and Ollie Wood. 

"[I] have been doing my best to recover quickly, so hopefully another 24 hours of rest does the trick," Bigham wrote on his Instagram account. 

In the seconds after they won the women’s team sprint Olympic title, Emma Finucane, Sophie Capewell and Katy Marchant posted up separately along the back straight, a bike length apart from each other, and bowed over their handlebars in exhaustion. 

They had had to break the world record three times to win in Paris. In beating New Zealand in the final, they became Team GB's first-ever medal winners in the event, one which the team hasn't qualified for since London 2012.  

The trio looked immediately for their families in the swell of the glory. When they found them, they fell over the barriers in unison, still straddling their bikes, and into the arms of their loved ones. 

The scene was a sea of Union Jacks. At least 30 British flags rippled around the winners, many of which, it appeared, belonged to Finucane's family. 

"There's like 10 of them," the Welshwoman smiled afterwards. "My family came from Carmarthen in a camper van to support me. Having all of our families here, because it's closer to home, was really special.

"I actually went up to my dad, and he suffocated me. He was hugging me and I was like, 'I can't breathe!' You will remember moments like that forever. We'll always cherish this moment."

As the trio prepared themselves for the medal ceremony, wide-eyed and taking deep breaths of the humid air, the big screens cut to Finucane's family in the stand. "This is one of the best days of my life," her younger brother, Sean, said into the microphone. Her sister, Rosie, stood beside him in floods of tears. 

"To cross that finish line, having everyone here supporting us from Great Britain is really special," Finucane said, looking across at her teammates. "Katy has Arthur, and you [Sophie] have your family here, and they couldn't be more proud of us."

Arthur, Marchant's two-year-old son, stood perched on the track railing as his mother received her first Olympic gold medal. "He was cheering," she said. "I think he was a bit overwhelmed by everything, as we were, to be honest."

In the curtailed three-year cycle between Tokyo and Paris, Marchant spent 18 months away from racing to give birth to Arthur. She doubted whether she'd ride at another Olympics, but it was the desire to do so that got her into the best form of her life. With a gold medal around her neck, the 31-year-old walked through the track centre in Paris, holding her son over her shoulder. 

"He's a key member of our team, and a huge part of my journey as well, so it's really special," she said. "He popped up in my hotel yesterday. I didn't want the first time I saw him to be in the stands, or I'd be sobbing my heart out, so we needed to get that out of the way. But every time I looked up today, I saw him, so it just makes it even more special. The memories will last forever."

For Capewell, the winning moment, and the celebrations afterwards, were "different level". Victorious, she rode around the track with a British flag, given to her by her mother, Debbie, who had been sitting trackside wearing a Union Jack bucket hat. 

Capewell's father, Nigel, died in 2021. He was a two-time Paralympian, having competed in Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, and later a well-loved cycling coach, a friendly face around the velodrome. 

Prior to the Games, the 25-year-old said that even though her father wouldn't be in Paris, she would still "share" her Olympic moment with him. "My dad always told me never to just aim for bronze because that's what he did and he got fourth," she said. 

Now, Capewell's a gold medallist, alongside Finucane and Marchant, GB's first women's sprint Olympic champions. "I think this is the start of a hopefully great week for us," Marchant said. Their families, no doubt, will be beside them for it all. 

A silver medal, won in a track cycling event at the 1900 Olympic Games, has been scored off Great Britain's Olympic tally and reassigned to France. 

Lloyd Hildebrand claimed second in the men's 25km race over a century ago, when he was said to be of British nationality. 

New information has since revealed that Hildebrand "was born and brought up in France", according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), whose executive board approved the reassignment of the medal in a meeting on Thursday.  

"Even though Hildebrand was a British citizen, he was born and brought up in France, and competed for a French club before and after Paris 1900," the IOC said in a statement. 

"The medal won by Hildebrand will now be credited to France instead of Great Britain in the official records of the Olympic Games Paris 1900 and in the IOC's database."

At the time of the 1900 Olympics, athletes signed up for the Games using the number of their race licence, issued by the country where they tended to compete. As a British citizen, regularly racing in the UK, Hildebrand was therefore considered British. 

Today, the athlete registration process is more rigorous, managed by each country's National Olympic Committee, like the British Olympic Association for Team GB. 

As a result of Hildebrand's nationality reassignment, France took a clean sweep in the 25km track event, which was won by Louis Bastien, an athlete who also competed in fencing at the 1900 Games. 

In response to losing a historic medal, a Team GB spokesperson told the BBC: “We were aware of the change of status for the medal, and have ourselves benefited in such circumstances before.

"We shall try to win one back later this summer!"

This July, the Olympics will return to Paris, where Great Britain will be favourites in a range of disciplines, having topped the cycling medal table in each of the last four Games. 

The cycling events will open with the individual time trials on 27 July, and close with the final races on the track on 11 August. The road races will take place on the weekend of 3-4 August, starting and finishing in front of the Eiffel Tower. 

This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 18 April 2024. Subscribe now and never miss an issue. 

“Flat white please,” say Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell in unison. It’s a well-rehearsed coffee order, one that GB’s track sprinting duo have made a hobby of placing around the world. They’ve asked for it at competitions in Switzerland and Egypt, Australia and Hong Kong. Today, though, they’re a stone’s throw from home. It’s late February, the morning after the National Track Championships, and we’re in Manchester, sitting in a café in the trendy Ancoats district, north of the city centre. The sign on the door reads ‘Off The Press’ – Finucane has chosen an apt spot for a magazine interview, notes accompanying press officer, British Cycling's Ellie Stott. 

We remove our jackets and assemble at a round, wooden table. “I never used to be a flat white girl,” says Finucane, the Welsh-born world and European sprint champion. “I used to be a cappuccino girl.” Capewell’s a bit of a coffee connoisseur, she explains, and has her own machine at home. “I can do a tulip,” she says proudly, when I ask about her latte art repertoire, “but that’s as much as I can do so far.” 

What Capewell lacks in milk-pouring skills, however, she makes up for in her ability on the track. This August, she and Finucane will go to the Paris Olympics as two of GB’s brightest medal hopes. They’re part of the new wave in the women’s sprint team, a pillar of the GB track squad that has struggled in recent years, but having failed to qualify for the previous two Olympic Games, now looks odds-on for success.

The walls of the café are made almost entirely of glass. Sunlight cascades through, across the countertops, bathing the giant potted plants that are as tall as the ceiling. Outside, the weather is crisp. Like almost every other day, today is a training day for Finucane and Capewell. This afternoon, they’re down to practise team sprint starts, but not without getting their fix of caffeine first. Within seven minutes of their flat whites arriving at our table, their mugs are empty. “The amount of coffee we consume is outrageous,” Finucane says. So intense are their training sessions that the pair are encouraged to take it very easy off the bike. That’s why they know Manchester’s café scene better than anybody else. 

Before Christmas, ahead of their first races of this key Olympic year, the women’s sprint team laboured through a tough block of weightlifting. It’s crucial for their discipline of the sport, which hinges on going fast, putting immense power through the pedals. At the Manchester Velodrome, they share the gym with fellow GB cyclists, something they find highly motivating. 

“When someone’s going for a key lift, people will always shout for each other,” says Finucane. Capewell picks out a recent memory. “Ross Cullen from BMX went for a PB and he picked the time when everyone was in the gym, and everyone just screamed,” she laughs. Spurred on, Cullen managed 155kg for a clean lift – where the barbell is lifted from the floor to shoulder height in one smooth motion. “It was a gym record as well. We have a little tally going of the best lifts.”

Reluctantly, Capewell admits that she too features on the records list, having managed 105kg, also for a clean lift. “The gym’s new,” the 25-year-old adds, “and it’s really good. We’re all currently putting new records up on the board because all the other ones are from our old gym. Everyone’s a bit like, ‘Ah, someone’s just done this, so I’m going to put two more kilos on it.’”

Unlike road riders, track sprinters often have to wait months between competitions. What’s more, their biggest goal comes only once every four years. Camaraderie is key to keeping spirits high through training blocks. “Sprinters pick different music in the gym,” Finucane explains. “We’ve now discovered the jam feature on Spotify. One person is in control, and you can add songs to it.” What sort of music do heavy-lifting riders choose? “Well,” starts Capewell, “you can tell when someone’s going for a lift because a lot of people have a certain song they like to put on. Hamish [Turnball, sprinter] picks Numb/Encore [by Linkin Park and Jay-Z], so you know he’s going for a big lift when that comes on in the queue. It’s always the same one.” 

Not everyone can sing along, though. “Emma’s a little bit younger and doesn’t know all the stuff. It’s always like, ‘Emma, do you know this song?’ We’re trying to educate her. She doesn’t know a lot of the R&B club anthems. She has a very specific music taste.” Finucane nods in agreement. “I’ll know the chorus,” the 21-year-old responds, “but that’s about it. I listen to Katy Perry, Post Malone and Fred Again.” Bashfully, she confesses a soft spot for Katy Perry’s song Teenage Dream (“an absolute bop”). “I don’t put it on in the gym because I’d get ripped for that,” she adds. “It’s one for my headphones only.”  

Of course, it’s not all fun and games for the sprint squad. After winning silver at last year’s World Championships in Glasgow, breaking the world record in the final but still losing out to Germany by seven-hundredths of a second, they set out to go deeper than ever behind the scenes. Their gym sessions have been built around pushing their muscles to the limit, making their legs burn as intensely as they do in races. “I’ve cried,” says Finucane bluntly. “It’s the most horrific feeling ever.” Capewell offers her team-mate solidarity. “We’ve both cried during blocks,” she says. “It would always be at the end of the session, just us two crying at the back of the gym. In the back of your mind, you’re thinking, ‘If I can get past the suffering here, I can do it on the bike’.”

The hard work, it’s clear, is paying off. Buoyed by her rainbow bands, Finucane has won three individual gold medals this year. Together with Katy Marchant, she and Capewell also won team sprint gold in each of the opening two UCI Nations Cup rounds, held in Adelaide and Hong Kong. The first was a momentous victory, one that came over a decade after GB’s last success in the event – or precisely “4,095 days” notes a smiling Capewell. “We sat down the Friday before and the coaches had figured out how many days it had been. We kept getting close, but we hadn’t quite crossed that line in terms of being on the top step.” 

With gold medals now in reach, the focus is on getting faster. Not since Glasgow has the squad clocked below 46 seconds in competition in the three-lap team sprint. Helping them get there is their coach, Scott Pollock, who came in as a late swap last year, after four-time world champion Kaarle McCulloch chose to return to her native Australia.

“Scott’s great,” says Finucane. Previously, both she and Capewell have spoken at length about the positive impact McCulloch had on them, as people as much as athletes. There were tears when the Australian left, and a concern of disruption so late in the Olympic cycle. “[Pollock] came in at a weird time for us,” Finucane continues. “It’s hard for anyone to come into a squad and try and change things, but he’s really, really good. I feel like I’ve taken what I’ve learned from Kaarle, and using what I’ve learned with him, we’re working well as a team.” 

A former strength and conditioning coach, Pollock knows what it’s like to be dropped into a high-pressure situation, having been called in late to coach the men’s sprint squad into Tokyo in 2021. “He’s really switched on,” says Finucane. “He’ll go and analyse races for hours, and analyse riders, their strengths and weaknesses. He carries round this big book that I haven’t seen much of, but when he opens it you’re like, ‘Wow, OK.’” 

Together with Pollock, the team takes time to watch their races back. They pore over footage of the opposition, too; the Germans and the Chinese look to be their biggest rivals for the gold medal this summer. Who else is on their radar? “We keep an eye on every team we can,” Capewell says. “Anything can happen when the Games come around, but we can only control ourselves. There’s only so much you can do watching everyone else.” 

Interestingly, some of that competition might come from within their own team. As they sit, sipping from matching GB bidons, both Finucane and Capewell are aware that they could be drawn against each other in Paris in the individual events – the keirin and the match sprint. “I think that’s why we are successful,” explains Finucane, “because we have that in-house competition. We qualified first and second at Worlds, and we’ve raced against each other.” The 21-year-old politely leaves out the detail that, when the duo faced off in the Nations Cup final in Cairo last March, she won 2-0 in a best of three. “I think it’s really cool that we can race against each other internally and at a really high level,” Finucane adds. 

Still, despite there being three sprint events at the Olympics, the squad’s main training focus is the team sprint. It’s in this discipline that they practise the key principles of acceleration, aerodynamic positioning, and holding their line. And yet, they seldom race the full three laps in training. “We do half the distance,” explains Finucane. “Sometimes in flying efforts we’ll do a flying 100m, which is half, and you can kind of gauge, but until you get to race day, you never actually know.” 

One thing they’re both certain of, though, is that it will take a world record to win in Paris. The benchmark in the team sprint currently stands at 45.848 seconds, set by Germany in last year’s World Championships final. As this issue of CW goes to press, there are 109 days – that’s 9.4 million seconds – until the women’s team sprint final on 5 August. “At the end of the day, in Paris, whoever the GB three are, they’ll be trying to find tenths of a second off each other’s laps,” says Finucane, conscious the trio is yet to be finalised. At this stage, Marchant looks likely to be the third name. “When you know the final team, that’s when you start finding tenths in the changeovers and the lines you do, how you execute, how you ride, and how you trust each other. Then it will start to come together.” 

A tenth of a second. That’s what could stand between them and an Olympic gold medal. “It’s not even the blink of an eye,” says Capewell. Scientifically, she’s right, but in track sprinting, a sport fought in the narrowest of margins, a tenth is a big gap to close. “It’s massive,” says Finucane, who regularly hits in excess of 1,400 watts. “Every race is different. You could win by a bike length, you could lose by a hair. We work so, so hard for those marginal gains. It might only be a tenth of a second, but it’s not just a click of the fingers. It’s hard. I think that motivates us every day.”

As the pair stand up to leave, Finucane turns to Capewell and huffs in embarrassment. “Teenage Dream is definitely going in the piece,” she says. They then swing by the counter, order another coffee to go, and set off for the velodrome.

Team GB track cyclist Matt Rotherham broke a squad gym record on Monday when he lifted an astonishing 250kg in a squat. 

The 29-year-old, a gold-medal-winning tandem sprint pilot, is currently preparing for this summer's Paralympics. 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, he said that his record lift fell within a "strength block" as he ramps up his training ahead of the Games. 

"Recently I've started improving in squat," Rotherham said. "I've seen old videos circulating of [former GB sprinter] Jamie Staff doing 245kg. [Current GB sprinter] Ali Fielding had matched 245kg in his time on the programme, and I think [recently retired GB sprinter] Ryan Owens was up there. 250kg was the next benchmark that had to go. We had an easy week last week, and it just kind of had to be really." 

Slipknot’s 'Psychosocial' played over the speakers as Rotherham attempted to lift heavier than any GB rider before him. In his headphones, he said, "it was Avenged Sevenfold", which blocked out the shouts of encouragement from his squad-mates around him. 

"As soon as someone's going for big lifts, the whole gym stops, everyone watches, everyone starts filming," he said. "For someone like me that likes a big stage, it's nice to have that feeling every now and again. It puts on a little bit of extra pressure, and means you really have to go for it."

Rotherham managed one full rep with a quarter of a tonne on his shoulders, then roared at the bar, beating his chest as he walked away. He had no spotter on standby – "if I was going to fail, I could just jump out from underneath it," he said.

This summer, the 29-year-old is expected to pilot 20-time world champion Neil Fachie in the tandem kilometre time trial at the Paris Paralympics. The pair won the gold medal in Tokyo last time round, setting a world record of 58.038 seconds. 

"It goes without saying that, just because you've squatted or leg pressed a certain number, it doesn't necessarily mean that you’re going to go faster on the bike," Rotherham said. "But I do, at the same time, believe that the stronger you are, the more potential you have to start faster and push the pedals that bit harder. The more I've lifted in the gym, the faster I've felt on the bike."

This desire to improve ties in with Rotherham's '60x12' philosophy, a personal hashtag he uses on his Instagram. 

"It all started years ago. Basically, the biggest gear I could ever make was 60x12, and from then on, anything I did 100% was referred to as 'going 60x12' – putting on the big gear and going for it," he explained. "It's also the name of my coaching business, 60x12.com. If anyone out there wants to get to the levels of strength and performance as me, then please check out 60x12.com."

Emma Finucane is one of Great Britain's brightest prospects on the track. By the age of 21, she became world, European, and Olympic champion, winning the team sprint in Paris on her debut at the Games. Finucane was awarded Cycling Weekly's Female Rider of the Year for 2023, a year in which she won four national titles, two silver medals at the European Championships, and a maiden rainbow jersey.

What was your first bike?

From memory, it was a pink Halfords bike with little tassels on the side. I used to ride around on the grass and the road. That's my memory of my first bike. I had a pink helmet as well. It was all pink. I think I was 10 when I moved on to an Islabike, a red one. If you know, you know!

What was your earlier memory of watching cycling? 

Icebreaker [a youth track racing series] is when I first remember watching a track race. I watched loads of little road races around where I was [in Carmarthen], and then I watched the London 2012 Olympics, in France, with my family. I remember seeing GB winning everything. I didn't know a lot about sprinting then, but I just remember watching that on the telly. My parents did a lot of sport, but they weren't really cycling based at all. 

Who was your cycling hero growing up? 

Nicole Cooke. I used to watch a lot of road racing, and she's Welsh, like me. Now, Tadej Pogačar is my cycling hero. I still love watching road racing, BMX, cyclo-cross and mountain bike. Going to the Tour de France is on my bucket list. I'd love to go. I really want to meet [Pogačar]. I met G[eraint Thomas] the other day on his podcast, and that was a pretty cool moment. 

What's the best place your career has taken you so far? 

I think Jakarta was a really cool place. We found these cool, little coffee shops and I got a flat white with a unicorn on it. We got escorted to the velodrome on these bikes and it was just carnage, but it was different. I'd never been to that side of the world. I feel like, when you grow up, you're like, "I really want to go to Australia." But I never thought I'd be able to go to Indonesia on my bike.

If you hadn't become a cyclist, what would you have done? 

What I would love to do, in a magical world, is I'd love to be a Formula 1 driver. I want to drive, but I don't know if that's realistic. If I wasn't a cyclist, I'd try to do that. I just love it. I actually want to do a fantasy F1 team. I'm going to go to Monza after the Games. 

What's the best thing about being a track sprinter? 

I like going fast, and I like that you can show your personality on the track, and you have your style on the track. It comes down to the margins, it's such close racing, and you can hit such high speeds, and it can come down to a lunge. I think that's really exciting, and the crowd love it as much as we love it. I love the people you meet in track cycling and sprinting and the community of it. But yeah, I think it's the speed. 

What's the proudest moment of your career so far? 

There are a few, but I was really proud of the Euros [in 2024, winning gold in the sprint, silver in the keirin and silver in the team sprint]. I had quite a lot going on coming into the Euros and I was really proud that I was able to hold the expectation and pressure on myself in the rainbow jersey and deliver. That was really big for me. 

You can read more about Finucane's career and preparations for the Paris Olympics in the latest issue of Cycling Weekly magazine (out 18 April 2024), which marks 99 days to go until the Games. 

Great Britain has qualified a full track cycling squad for the Paris Olympics this summer. 

The final qualification rankings were confirmed on Tuesday by the UCI, with GB meeting the quota criteria in every event. 

As a result, 14 British riders, seven per gender, will travel to Paris, France in August to compete at the Games. The squad will also be allowed to pull in one male and one female athlete from another cycling discipline, such as road, mountain bike or BMX, meaning up to 16 athletes will ride on the track.

It is the first time GB will be present in every track event since London 2012, having failed to meet the qualification requirements for the women's team sprint at both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. 

With no more major track competitions remaining before the Olympics, the GB coaches will now select the riders to compete in Paris. The full squad, containing additional reserve riders, is expected to be announced near the end of June. 

There are six track cycling medal events at the Olympics for both the men and women: three sprint events (team sprint, individual sprint and keirin) and three endurance events (team pursuit, Madison and Omnium). 

The qualification criteria drew on points gathered at the 2023 UCI Track World Championships, the last two Continental Championships, and the best two results from UCI Nations Cup rounds in 2023 and 2024. 

To qualify in the sprint events, GB had to rank in the top eight countries in the team sprint. The women's squad, who won the opening two Nations Cup rounds this year, qualified second, behind the world champions Germany. The men's squad qualified fifth. 

Two of the three team sprint riders in each gender will be selected for the individual sprint and keirin. 

In the endurance events, GB had to qualify among the top 10 countries in the team pursuit, granting them places in the Madison and Omnium as well. 

The men's team pursuit squad, having crashed out of last year’s World Championships, qualified seventh, thanks to gold medals at the European Championships and two of this year's Nations Cups. The women's team pursuit squad had a more assured qualifying period, ranking second overall, behind New Zealand. 

The UCI will now confirm the final quota places in writing to each of the countries. The full Olympic track rankings can be found on the governing body’s website. 

The track cycling events at the Paris Olympics will take place between 5-11 August at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome, southwest of the city. 

Three GB para-cyclists were mugged in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Wednesday following the first night of the Para-cycling Track World Championships. 

Two-time Paralympic gold medallist Neil Fachie revealed on X that he and fellow members of the tandem sprint team, including his wife Lora Fachie, had their silver medals stolen, among other possessions. 

"We were mugged tonight in Rio," Fachie wrote just after 11pm local time, "so sadly I’m not contactable by phone for a little while. We’re all okay, other than being shaken up. 

"Passports, cards, some cash and our silver medals were all stolen. A sad way to end the day."

In a statement shared with Cycling Weekly, British Cycling said: "[We] can confirm that three riders had their possessions stolen while returning to team accommodation after day one of the 2024 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Rio de Janeiro."

The national federation added that the three riders affected were Neil and Lora Fachie, as well as Lora's pilot, Corrine Hall. 

"The three riders are safe and well and are being supported by our staff both on the ground and at home," the statement continued. "We have raised the matter with the UCI, the local organising committee, and the police."

GB's tandem team sprint squad came second to Italy in the gold medal final on Wednesday night. 

This year's Para-Cycling Track World Championships, which run until Saturday 23 March, are the final qualifying event ahead of the summer’s Paris Paralympics. 

GB claimed two gold medals on Wednesday, thanks to Kadeena Cox in the C4 500m time trial, and Daphne Schrager in the C2 individual pursuit. 

"I’m happy to have defended my title," said Cox, who won her event for the third year running. "I haven’t had the best run in. It was good to still come out here and get the win, knowing that I've still got a good few months left before the big one in Paris."

Schrager, too, said she "wasn’t on [her] best form", but was "overjoyed" to take the world title. "To come back and be world champion again is everything," she said. "It’s every professional’s dream and to do it twice in a few years since I started is just amazing and will be cherished for the whole year."

Sophie Capewell is one of Great Britain's top track sprinters. She has won medals at the World Championships, European Championships and Commonwealth Games, and became Olympic champion in Paris as part of the team sprint squad. She sat down with Cycling Weekly to reflect on her cycling journey so far. 

What was your first bike? 

It was a little, purple - I think it was sparkly - mountain bike. I started cycling really young. I raced cyclocross and stuff when I was like six. When I grew up, I did nearly every discipline, except I wasn’t allowed to do BMX. That was never on the cards, because of the danger element. I don’t think my parents would have been able to cope. 

What’s your earliest memory of watching cycling? 

It must have been a World Champs, or the Beijing Olympics, and I remember watching Chris Hoy and Vicki Pendleton. My parents were watching the sprint in the living room, and it just seemed so exciting. My dad always used to shout at the television when he got excited in a race. I just remember these people riding around a track and going really fast. I thought it was amazing. 

Who was your cycling hero? 

Growing up, it was definitely Chris Hoy and Vicki Pendleton. They were at the forefront of track sprinting when I was growing up. I think I was always destined to be a sprinter. If I could get to the end of a race, I could finish it as a sprinter, but everything else, like in cyclocross, I sank into the mud and ploughed through it. Hoy and Pendleton were absolutely tearing up the scene at that point. 

What is the best place your career has taken you so far? 

Australia. We did a camp in Brisbane in 2019, and it was just a bit surreal to turn up there and my job was to go cycle, ride in the sunshine, train really hard, and then race at the end of it. That was a bit of a ‘Wow, this is actually what I’m doing’ kind of moment. What a cool place, and what an opportunity to go halfway across the world to ride my bike. 

If you hadn’t become a cyclist, what would you have done? 

I probably would have tried to find another sport. Growing up, I was that person who did as many sports as I could. I used to swim - I swam for the county - and I used to run for county schools. I was always a sprinter. 100m or 200m running. Same in the pool, I was a 50m kind of gal. 

Aside from sport, I probably would have ended up going to uni and doing something maths or physics related. At one point, I wanted to be a research scientist, but I think I’ve strayed a little bit far from that. Sport’s such a cool way to live, and I am just horrendously competitive, so I think I would have had to have some sort of outlet for that. 

What’s the best thing about being a track sprinter? 

It’s a bit like a game. Going back to maths, it’s a bit like a problem. It’s all laid out in front of you, and you have to find a way to go fast and win. It really satisfies that competitive urge, but at the same time, you get that adrenaline, and it’s just so much fun. It’s not just riding mindlessly, it’s so complex. 

What is the proudest moment of your career so far? 

Commonwealth Games, 2022, keirin and 500m time trial. I won medals in both [silver in the keirin and bronze in the time trial]. I’d had a really tricky few years before that - I had a lot of family stuff, I lost my dad, and before that competition, I felt a little bit lost in my path. I had come up through the youth and junior ranks, gotten onto the British Cycling programme, and I’d had a really successful time, but then I had a lot of family illness. I didn’t really find my feet, and I had quite a few different coaches. It just felt really messy. I didn’t really know who I was as a rider for quite a long time. 

I hadn’t been well that week, either. I had a conversation with my coach at the time, Kaarle [McCulloch], and I found a way to bring out something in myself that I hadn’t seen for quite a long time. The way I rode, and how I executed my race, reminded me of a younger version of myself, and that was a massive confidence boost moment. 

The Great Britain Cycling Team will compete on the best equipment of any country at the Paris Olympics this summer, performance director Stephen Park has said. 

Team GB has developed mounds of new tech for the Games, including state-of-the-art skinsuits, a 3D-printed frame and an updated model of its Hope-Lotus HBT bike. 

The cut-off for registering equipment - homologating it for use with the UCI - was last year's World Championships in Glasgow. There, Team GB homologated 64 pieces of kit, many of which have since been kept behind closed doors. 

"For those of us that are into tech, it's quite interesting times," Park said. "Some pieces of equipment are limited and set by that homologation. Some have some degrees of freedom within them. It's even more so on the apparel side, the clothing side."

GB's tech advances in recent years have focused mainly on the track, where the winning margin often comes down to a fraction of a second. In previous Olympic cycles, the squad has opted to keep its new tech veiled in the run-up to the Games, preventing rival countries from seeing its benefit in competition. 

Park confirmed that GB’s new Hope-Lotus bike, announced last July and ridden just once at the World Championships, will not be used until "the first race of the Olympics". He also said that there will "certainly be some 3D-printed products involved in the line-up".

Likewise, the performance director highlighted that "there's been a lot of equipment homologated by other teams" that GB can now also use. 

"We'll still make sure we've got rounder wheels than everyone else," Park said, echoing a tongue-in-cheek remark made by his predecessor, Dave Brailsford, at the 2012 Olympics. "[We'll also have] slippier frames than everyone else, and hopefully better apparel than everyone else.

"I am confident that, when we go to Paris, no other team will have an equipment and an apparel set-up that will be better than the one that we will be able to provide our riders to give them the best opportunity to deliver their best on the day."

Team GB topped the medal table in cycling at each of the last four Olympics. During the current Paris cycle, British Cycling bolstered its advantage by acquiring a wind tunnel from Halfords for £1, which was installed a short walk from the National Cycling Centre in Manchester in 2022. 

"We've been able to run lots more tests and positioning than we’ve ever done before," Park said of the new tool. "We've been able to offer it to the Paralympic riders, which we’ve never done before. That has provided us with a great opportunity to progress testing."

Still, Park stressed, with each new cycle, come "diminishing returns" on new equipment. 

"You're still looking for every half a percent," he said. "It's a challenge, but it’s a good one. We've got some really smart people doing some really good work in that space. I'd be quite happy if I was a rider."

Jody Cundy CBE is an eight-time Paralympic gold medallist and 20-time track cycling world champion. A former swimmer, Cundy competed in his first Paralympics in 1996, and went on to win three golds in the pool before turning to cycling in 2006. He is known as the king of the kilometre time trial, having won 14 world titles in the discipline. 

What was your first bike? 

It was a yellow and black BMX with stabilisers on. I remember I broke the stabilisers, and my dad was a welder, so he took them into work. But I just loved riding my bike, and when he came home, I was riding the bike without stabilisers. He fixed them for no reason at all. I was maybe six years old. 

What’s your earliest memory of watching cycling? 

I was interested in Barcelona [Olympics 1992]. [Chris] Boardman and the Lotus bike kind of sparked my interest. I remember sending Lotus a letter saying I had a design for a wheel with dimples in it, like a golf ball. They sent me a letter back saying, ‘We don’t think this would work on a wheel.’ It makes me laugh now everytime I see a Zipp wheel with dimples. It’s like, ‘I came up with that years ago!’ 

After Barcelona, I got interested in the Hour Record. I followed Chris, Graeme Obree, Miguel Induráin, Tony Rominger in that heyday of the Hour Record. I always wanted to try out the track, but I never had the opportunity to. That was during my swimming career. 

Why did you transition from swimming to cycling? 

I was getting to the end of my swimming career. I had maybe one more Paralympic Games in me. I was training for the Worlds that year, 2006, and if I had gone well there, Beijing would have been my last swimming championships [in 2008]. But in the timespan between 2005 and 2006, I had a disability open day at Newport Velodrome, and I loved it. 

I found out about sessions that go on in Manchester, and when I went up for a swimming training camp, Sarah Storey said to me, ‘I’m going on a drop-in session, do you want to join in?’ I brought my helmet with me, jumped on the track, and loved it again. 

I then got persuaded to enter Nationals. You didn’t need any qualifying time or anything, just a bike, a licence and the will to do it. I went to a bike shop, got a deal on a bike, and that was it. I entered Nationals, did a flying 200m, and broke the British record. 

I was still training six days a week swimming then, but once a week I’d go to Newport and train with the guys down there. The coach of the guys I trained with sent times off times to British Cycling, and they came back one day to say I was going faster than anybody on the squad. 

What is it about the kilo that appealed to you? 

I think it just suits my physiology. In swimming, I was a 100m butterfly swimmer, which is 60 seconds of effort. A kilo’s just over 60 seconds, so it kind of fitted nicely. Plus, you get to go fast and use all the cool kit in the kilo. I think that’s what appealed to me. 

Is there one moment in your career that stands out to you? 

Team sprint, Tokyo [Paralympics in 2021]. Every time you do a race, you go, ‘Ah I wish I had done this to make it better.’ You never do the perfect race. But that was the perfect race. I can’t think of anything I would have done in that race that would have made me go any faster, and Jaco [van Gass] and Kadeena [Cox] were exactly the same. We brought it all together, and we did the time that theoretically we thought we might be able to do if everything went well. That’s the time we won in in the Games. 

What’s the best place your cycling career has taken you?

I’ve done some cool stuff, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that’s blown me away. I did get to borrow a Porsche for four days. I posted on Twitter when I got home from Rio [Paralympics in 2016], and I was like, ‘Am I getting old, but I quite fancy getting a Porsche?’ I knew I’d never be able to afford one. But one of the Porsche dealers in Colchester, his brother was the manager there, he got in touch me with and said, ‘If you want to drive a Porsche, I can let you borrow one of our test cars.’ I had a whole long weekend driving a Porsche and did like 500-600 miles in it. It was amazing. 

You were on the last season of Strictly Come Dancing. How did that impact your cycling? 

I actually came back stronger off the back of Strictly than I did when I went into it. Mainly because of the stability and balance that I got from all the dancing and all the dance exercises. 

I loved it. We were practising Monday to Thursday, then Friday we’d go down to London and do rehearsals. We’d do three run-throughs on the dance floor to make sure you’ve got all the positions, so the cameras know where you’re going. Then on Saturday we did two more run-throughs in the morning with the band, then a full dress rehearsal, then the show at night and the results show all in one. Sunday off, and then back in again on Monday. 

You’ve been with Team GB for almost 30 years. What’s the key to staying motivated to train and at the top of your game? 

Every time I manage to get to a Paralympics or a World Championships, when I succeed in doing it, the feeling is, ‘I really enjoyed that.’ I can’t imagine not doing it. I was thinking about retiring in London [2012], and then London happened and I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to be in Rio. That’s four more years.’ The motivation was there, and I still feel like I’m getting better. 

I just keep trying to reinvent myself and not overcook it. [My advice is] know what you’re capable of, know what motivates you, and just try to keep it fresh all the time. At the end of the day, most of the stuff we do boils down to stuff we did 20 years ago, but it’s about trying to do it in a different way, or giving yourself different challenges. It’s just about having fun on the bike.

Victory for Josie Knight in the individual pursuit rounded out Great Britain’s best ever medal haul at the European Track Championships last week. 

The squad took home 14 medals from the competition in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, six of which were gold, six silver and two bronze. 

The tally meant GB topped the medal table, ahead of Germany with nine. 

For GB performance director Stephen Park, the results showed the squad are “on the right track” in this key Olympic year. 

“There were some incredible performances throughout the week, at what was an incredibly high level of competition from all teams,” Park said. 

GB’s golden run in Apeldoorn began with victory in the men’s team pursuit on Thursday night. The result meant the squad earned vital Olympics qualifying points, after they fell out of the rankings following a crash in the World Championships last summer. 

“The real big one for me was seeing Charlie Tanfield coming back,” Park said. “He’s had six months of wondering whether he’ll be able to make it back into the team having had that terrible fall in Glasgow. He’s come back and delivered a great performance when it mattered.” 

Tanfield was also part of an all-British individual pursuit final, won by his teammate Dan Bigham. There were further titles for Emma Finucane in the match sprint, Katy Marchant in the 500m time trial, Ethan Hayter in the Omnium, and finally Knight in the individual pursuit, her winning margin just three thousands of a second. 

“The morale as we go into this Olympic year is incredibly high,” Park said. “We’re clearly on the right track as we head towards Paris. We’ve set down a marker for a number of those teams that are looking to challenge us. 

“We have a group of riders and staff who are feeling confident that we’re going to be going into Paris in a strong position, and we’re going to be competitive in many, if not all, of the events, when we get to the Olympic Games. 

“It’s been a fantastic week,” he concluded. 

The squad will now travel to three Nations Cup rounds in the run-up to the Olympics. 

The first is in Adelaide, Australia on 2-4 Feb, followed by Hong Kong on 15-17 March, and finally Milton, Canada on 12-14 April, which is likely to serve as a dress rehearsal for the Games. 

The full list of GB medal winners from the 2024 European Track Championships is below. 

Gold

Ethan Hayter, Dan Bigham, Ethan Vernon, Charlie Tanfield, Ollie Wood - team pursuit
Emma Finucane - sprint
Dan Bigham - individual pursuit
Katy Marchant - 500m time trial
Ethan Hayter - Omnium
Josie Knight - individual pursuit 

Silver 

Katy Marchant, Sophie Capewell, Emma Finucane, Lowri Thomas - team sprint
Will Tidball - elimination race
Charlie Tanfield - individual pursuit
Neah Evans - Omnium
Josie Knight, Anna Morris, Meg Barker, Jess Roberts, Neah Evans - team pursuit
Emma Finucane - keirin

Bronze

Jess Roberts - elimination race
Anna Morris - individual pursuit

None of GB’s riders are racing on the new Hope-Lotus HBT at the European Track Championships this week, and they might not do so before the Paris Olympics this August.

British Cycling unveiled an updated model of the track bike last July, ahead of the World Championships, where it was used just once for homologation. 

The manufacturers - Hope Technology, Renishaw and Lotus Engineering - are now against the clock to produce a fleet before the summer, with the squad still waiting to receive the updated model. 

Sprinter Jack Carlin, an Olympic silver medallist, said he has not yet ridden the new bike, and does not expect to soon. 

“I imagine the first race you’ll see us with them at is the Olympics,” he said. “There are a lot of riders, and that doesn’t mean we’re going to be the first in line to get them. It might be that they want to get them all out at the same time. We’ll just have to wait and see on that one.

"The focus just now is on the physical process goals, and the kit's the cherry on top when you go into the Games."  

A press contact at British Cycling told Cycling Weekly the bikes are likely to be launched around April, just four months before the Olympics. 

The new Hope-Lotus design has the same characteristically wide seatstays as the first edition, but now features a split seatpost, ribbed forks and aero-enhanced handlebars. 

According to GB performance director Stephen Park, it is “the most advanced bike that has ever been ridden by British athletes”. 

Still, it has only been used once in competition, steered by Charlie Tanfield in the qualifying round of the team pursuit at last year’s World Championships. Tanfield crashed, and GB failed to qualify. 

Pursuiter Dan Bigham, who also works as an aerodynamicist for Ineos Grenadiers, said he will test ride the bike for the first time next week, immediately after the European Championships. 

“I think it’s really well engineered,” Bigham said. “It’s nice to see how they’ve iterated on the previous generation. There were flaws in certain aspects of that design, how it interacts with the rider, and just general cleanliness of design. I think they were time-pressed to get that design out, so there were a few rough edges that they’ve polished nicely.” 

On Wednesday’s opening night of the European Championships, GB riders raced on the first-generation Hope-Lotus bikes, released in October 2019. Bigham rode his own pink Pinarello Bolide. 

Other nations used newly produced bikes, such as France, whose sprinter Rayan Helal was spotted on Look’s new P24. 

The wait for new bikes did not hamper GB’s medal hopes, though. The squad claimed two silver medals on Wednesday, thanks to Will Tidball in the elimination race and the women’s team sprint squad. 

Tidball raced on an outdated Cervélo T4 track bike, used by GB prior to the Tokyo Olympics. Curiously, the 23-year-old won the scratch race world title last year on an unreleased, 3D-printed bike, which has since gone back into hiding. 

Both the GB men’s and women’s team pursuit quartets will ride in gold medal finals this evening. The men will face world champions Denmark, while the GB women - the top-ranked team in the world - will take on Italy. 

The European Championships are taking place in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, and run until this Sunday, 14 January. 

Track cycling legend Laura Kenny has warned people against expecting her to compete at the Paris Olympics next summer. 

The five-time Olympic gold medallist gave birth to her second child, Montgomery, in July this year, and is now back in training ahead of the Games. 

Speaking to the BBC, Kenny said she feels a “really low pressure environment” to return to the squad. 

“Whether it be the Olympics or whether it then be a World Championships, for me, obviously, the nice, grand picture that everyone wants to paint is ‘Laura’s going for the Olympics’,” she said. 

“When I read [the headlines], I was a bit terrified. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I hope people don’t expect me to actually make it to Paris.’ Because obviously it is such an ask. For me, it’s always been to race again. I just want to race again.”

Last month, the 31-year-old recorded a video with Team GB, in which she appeared to set her sights on next summer's Games. “I obviously want to compete at the next Olympics,” she told the camera. “I know everyone thinks I’m absolutely mad in saying that, but if I don’t try, I’ll never know.” 

Only five riders will make the women’s endurance track team for Paris, with Kenny, the reigning Madison champion, facing competition for a spot. 

This August, Neah Evans and Elinor Barker claimed the world title in the Madison for Team GB. Barker was also part of the team pursuit squad, along with her sister Megan Barker, Katie Archibald, Josie Knight and Anna Morris, that won World Championships gold for the first time in nine years. 

Speaking now to the BBC, Kenny said it would be “one hell of a comeback” if she were to be part of the squad. 

At the start of this shortened Olympics cycle, she had a miscarriage, before suffering an ectopic pregnancy in January 2022. She went on to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games that August, but later revealed she considered leaving the sport.

“[I was] obviously delaying [my comeback], because I still wanted to have another baby,” she told the BBC. “I knew that time would be short before the next Olympics, and it wasn’t about this big fairytale, it was about what my heart so desperately wanted. And it was to have him [Montgomery], I just wanted another one.

“I was just thinking, ‘Right, whenever this happens, we have to deal with possibly not going to another Olympics, or not competing for a while.’ And I was ok with that, because I got the outcome that I actually wanted.”

The track cycling events at the Paris Olympics will take place on on 5-11 August 2024. 

British Cycling has secretly developed a new track bike frame that could be used at next year’s Paris Olympics, Cycling Weekly can reveal. 

The frame, which goes under the moniker UKSI-BC1, was designed and produced by in-house experts, together with the performance innovation team from the UK Sports Institute (UKSI). 

It is not part of the governing body’s partnership with Hope, the manufacturer who recently unveiled an updated HBT frame for Team GB for the Paris Olympics. 

A listing on the UKSI website reads: “The UKSI-BC1 utilises the latest techniques of additive manufacture to bring 3D printing technology to a high performance track bike. Developed and tested to meet ISO standards for fatigue and strength as a minimum.” 

The design is one of only a handful to ever be produced through 3D printing and includes a Lotus A1000M fork. 

It is available commercially at a price of £55,000 + VAT, more than double the cost of the latest Hope x Lotus HBT, which is valued at £25,000. 

The frame has only appeared once in competition, when Will Tidball rode it to victory in the scratch race at the UCI World Championships in August. As a result of its use, it has been officially registered and homologated for the 2024 Olympics. 

When asked by Cycling Weekly, British Cycling refused to reveal how many frames have been produced or what material it contains. 

The design is almost identical to that of the new Hope x Lotus HBT, with the difference likely to be the material, thought to be either titanium or Scalmalloy. 

The secret project marks the first time that British Cycling has produced a frame away from Hope since partnering with the brand in 2019, ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

A spokesperson from Hope told Cycling Weekly: "British Cycling came to us to be involved with the Hope Lotus bike due to our expertise with carbon, and as that new frame is 3D printed, we weren’t involved."

They added that Hope is unable to 3D print products "to that scale", with the manufacturer specialising in carbon and aluminium. 

Earlier this year, Cycling Weekly also revealed a new line of skinsuits debuted by Team GB for homologation before the Olympics. These included the Project 1.0, designed by Kalas in partnership with aero experts Vorteq, and a never-before-seen, thick-collared suit worn by Tidball. 

This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 11 May 2023. Since publication, both Cat Ferguson and Izzy Sharp have signed WorldTour contracts, and will join Movistar and Lidl-Trek respectively in 2024. 

Cat Ferguson was just 16 years old when she made her Nations Cup debut at the Piccolo Trofeo Alfredo Binda in March. In her first year of A-Levels, she had just joined GB’s junior academy and was gearing up for her first road race with the squad. She was nervous, of course she was nervous, but there was no real pressure to perform. The race was twice as long as she was used to, and more still, some of the riders on the start list were two years older than her. 

“I was hoping to maybe be in the front group, and maybe get a top 10,” she tells Cycling Weekly. So you can imagine her surprise when she went and won the thing. 

“It was quite a shock,” Ferguson says. With 40km to go, she tore clear from the pack, together with a French rider, and won the two-up sprint to the finish. She covered her mouth in disbelief as she crossed the line.  

First-year academy riders winning on their debut is almost unheard of, but the latest crop of GB junior women is special. For the squad’s coach, Emma Trott, older sister of five-time Olympic gold medallist Laura Kenny, Ferguson’s feat is the reserve of “super-talents”, of which there are a handful in the eight-rider cohort. A glance at the Binda results shows that, of the six girls the national federation fielded, four of them finished in the top 11. What’s even more impressive is that they’d never ridden together before. 

Now, there’s a confidence in the squad that they can win every race they start. The riders all believe it. Trott believes it, too. “I think everyone thinks I’m mad, actually,” she tells Cycling Weekly. “But I somehow plant seeds that miraculously grow and then people buy into my madness. I do genuinely believe that we could dominate this year, which sounds cocky, but there’s something about it that I do think it could happen.”

For the junior academy coach, her current cohort is the most well-balanced she has ever managed. “I was excited in October when I selected them,” she says. “First camp, I was buzzing, absolutely buzzing, because I could just see the cohesion. Everything about it was just wow, I was like, ‘This is really awesome.’ And then it got better and better and better.” 

At the training camp in Mallorca, Spain, Trott was taken aback by the team’s work ethic. “They were just unbelievable in terms of their willingness to train hard,” she says. On one occasion, the group insisted on riding further than planned, determined to reach the 100-mile mark and build up their endurance for the longer races they’d face at junior level. 

Why, then, if these teenagers are so talented, haven’t we heard about them before? 

For Trott, it has something to do with the 2022 junior world champion, Zoe Bäckstedt. Last year, Bäckstedt’s results overshadowed her teammates. As she cruised through the junior ranks, she picked up four rainbow jerseys, ruled over the Nations Cup stage races and secured herself a WorldTour contract.

“I think, in essence, Zoe was a godsend, because I think the girls were almost protected in a certain way,” says Trott. “What it has meant is that other riders have been able to develop out of the spotlight, which I think sometimes is a good thing. Now, with her [Bäckstedt] removed from the junior category, it’s their opportunity to step-up.” 

One of those reaching new heights is second-year rider Izzy Sharp. A week after Binda, the then 17-year-old dashed to victory at Gent Wevelgem Juniors, following in the footsteps of WorldTour pros Pfeiffer Georgi and Elynor Bäckstedt. She continued her form into March’s EPZ Omloop van Borsele, winning the three-stage race she finished second in last year to Bäckstedt. 

Already a 10-time national champion, Sharp’s progress in cycling has been hugely promising. “I did a lot of sports when I was younger,” she tells Cycling Weekly. “I did triathlon for a year or two, which I think a lot of cyclists seem to do, and then ended up getting into cycling.” 

At youth level, Sharp took quickly to cyclo-cross and track racing, but really excelled in time trialling, collecting both course and national records. Merging disciplines, she says, gives her the “perfect combination” to succeed. “Track gives you such a tactical and technical ability on the bike, and obviously a speed aspect of it. Time trials, just general raw power, and that can just pass on to a lot of things.” 

It’s this multi-disciplinary view that’s helping accelerate the development of the junior academy riders. Sharp isn’t the only one crossing over. In fact, all of them compete in track events, which is a pre-requisite for getting on the programme. Some enjoy cyclo-cross, too, such as Imogen Wolff, the current junior national champion, and Binda winner Ferguson, who earned a silver medal in the team relay at this year’s World Championships. 

“It takes the boring side of winter training away,” Ferguson says. “For me, I like racing, I enjoy racing, so to be able to race all throughout the winer, instead of just having to train and wait for the first road race is definitely something that keeps me motivated.” 

The teenager grew up in North Yorkshire mountain biking on local trails with her parents. “I really didn’t like it,” she laughs. “I used to just get sprayed with mud. Then I started doing competitive skiing, slalom skiing, and alongside that I was using cycling at my local club for training.” When she realised she had a knack for it, she began dedicating herself more to riding her bike.

In tandem with her junior academy racing, Ferguson competes for a trade team, Shibden Hope Tech Apex, and stunned a stacked domestic field when she won her first road race at Capernwray in Lancaster. The team was set up this season by her father, Tim, a long-time cycling coach. 

“I started the team for many, many reasons,” he tells Cycling Weekly, though he’s quick to stress that not one of them were for his daughter. “I’m putting British junior girls at the forefront, which is a big passion,” he adds. 

His team counts seven girls, three of which are GB junior academy riders, with a further two involved more loosely with the national squad.

Having a trade team is a huge advantage for the GB prospects. If, for any reason, they aren’t selected for an event with the national federation, they can still rely on their teams for race entries. The parents band together to organise trips overseas, and with help from sponsors, can afford to give their daughters experience racing internationally. At Gent-Wevelgem Juniors, for example, there were 23 Brits, split across four teams. 

One of those was Shibden, a team for which manager Tim has a simple goal. “As much as it’s my team and I’m running it, I want to lose [the riders], if that makes sense? The aim is that they get noticed by whoever, and it’s already happening. We’ve got quite a few WorldTour teams who are interested in some of them.

“They aren’t just good, they’re bloody brilliant.” 

The WorldTour, at least for now, is perhaps a step too far. For national coach Trott, the most important thing is that her cohort of teenagers continues to develop, and has fun doing it. “We have this thing that it’s the big kid leading the little kids,” she says, “and maybe that’s just it. I think it’s a hard job whether you’re on the bike or off the bike, so actually having some fun and embracing that actually goes a hell of a long way. 

“As long as they’re happy, they’ll go out there and perform, whether that be in training or in a race.” 

And so, with smiles on their faces, the group’s path of destruction continues. They’ve already won the opening two Nations Cup events, but the line isn’t drawn there. They’re after the team pursuit title at the European Track Championships, Trott outlines, and with a home World Championships this August in Glasgow, they fancy a rainbow jersey, too. “I’d like to win everything this year, to be perfectly honest,” the coach says. There’s a real feeling that her group just might. 

GB's junior women won two out of the five Nations Cup events in 2023, and took bronze in the team pursuit at the European Track Championships. Ferguson went on to win the junior Tour of Flanders and finish second in the World Championships road race. Sharp, too, earned a silver medal at Worlds, a runner-up in the individual time trial. 

This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 1 June. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.

Four times a week, on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace, one of the country’s oldest ceremonies takes place. It starts with the rattle of a snare drum. Then, to the tune of the bearskin-topped regimental band, a group of guards marches slowly into the royal grounds. 

They move in perfect symmetry. Upon arrival, the captain of the Old Guard hands over the palace keys, and passes on the protective duty. The ceremony lasts no longer than 45 minutes. By lunchtime, the throngs of tourists have dispersed, and the New Guard stands proudly, as still as statues.   

Last year, in the space of six months, British Cycling overhauled its fleet of senior track coaches. There was no pomp or pageantry, just a handful of press releases, as the New Guard took up their posts. In came Ben Greenwood and Cameron Meyer to head up the men’s and women’s endurance programmes, while Jason Kenny and Kaarle McCulloch did the same on the sprint side. 

A few changes after an Olympic cycle is fairly typical, but for head coaches of all the senior squads to change is not. And with just three years separating the Tokyo and Paris Games, this build up is anything but typical. 

Between them, the four coaches have 12 years of coaching experience, but consider that nine of them belong to Greenwood, the men’s endurance coach. Meyer, Kenny and McCulloch, all former world champions on the track, joined straight from retirement. The national federation took a gamble on them. And it seems to be paying off. 

British Cycling’s success, at least in the public eye, has often come down to one simple metric: Olympic medals. Though Tokyo crowned new British champions in BMX and mountain biking, the track medal haul didn’t reach the squad’s high standards, with half as many golds won compared to Beijing, London and Rio. 

One of the titles that fell was the men’s team pursuit, an event they had won at each Games since Beijing 2008. “I’ve seen the ebbs and flows,” says Greenwood, who took over the role of men’s endurance coach in March last year. “I’ve seen us be top of the world in the team pursuit, and then seen it slightly drift away, after 2018. Your primary focus is the team pursuit to start with, as endurance coach, that’s the one you build your squad around. There’s a pressure to perform, but it’s just about breaking it down into its component parts. It’s overwhelming otherwise.” 

Himself a BC academy rider, claiming an under-23 national title, Greenwood transitioned to coaching in 2014 and rose through the ranks from BC’s junior squads. A glance across at him inside the track centre shows a relaxed character, focused and level-headed, never one to raise his voice. 

So it came as a surprise to see him jumping for joy when, just six months after taking over, he guided his team pursuit quartet to victory at the World Championships in Paris last October. 

“I think it was just a realisation that the work we’d put in together had paid off,” Greenwood says. The world title came a year after a disastrous ride in Tokyo, which ended in last-minute substitute Charlie Tanfield losing contact and being rear-ended by the Danes.

“To come back from that Tokyo experience, where we literally ended up on the floor, to this, I think it gives us tremendous hope and optimism,” Greenwood says. “Obviously we’re aiming to win the Olympics and working towards that, but maybe it didn’t feel like we were going to get this far in six months. My reaction was like, ‘Oh, we’re already on par now.’ We’ve only done the first part of our project. We’ve got more to give.” 

At the start of this year, Greenwood drove to Newport for the National Track Championships, together with the new women’s endurance coach, Meyer. 

It was the first time the 35-year-old Australian had visited Wales. “All the way down, he was like, ‘How are we going to know we’re in Wales?’,” Greenwood laughs, “and I was like, ‘Well, we’ll see the sign and all the street names will be in Welsh’. He was like, ‘But how do we know? Will the scenery change?’ He was very excited.” 

The excitement came in what had been a whirlwind four months for Meyer, who as a rider spearheaded the Australian men’s track squad for over a decade. Since calling time on his career last September, retiring as a nine-time track world champion, Meyer has barely had time to settle down. “It’s been full on,” he tells Cycling Weekly, but stresses the GB job was “too good of an opportunity to pass up”.

Despite his coaching inexperience, Meyer felt unfazed about the transition from athlete to trackside staff. “It’s just doing it with my legs on the ground, rather than on the pedals,” he smiles. “The way in which I look at it is that the understanding of what it is to be an athlete, we [retired pros] are very current with that. So the relationship that we can build with the current riders having been an athlete ourselves, just coming from retirement, I think it’s quite strong.” 

To smoothen out the Australian’s career change, British Cycling has a support network around him, including a physiologist, a performance strategist and experts in psychology. Still, he explains, the first six months have been a “steep learning curve” for him.

“There have been those challenges that I didn’t have expertise in,” Meyer says. “[For example], it could be around female training, and the way in which the body of a female works differently to the men. I’ve been in men’s teams my whole life.

“We’re definitely still in that early stage of building the relationship between coach and riders. I feel like the energy that I’ve brought, the new ideas that I’ve brought, have been really well received. I really feel we’re in a great spot going into the next Olympics. I think we will be really competitive to try for three gold medals.” 

When Meyer joined he was met by a familiar face - and accent - in the coaching ranks. Six months prior, former Olympic bronze medallist McCulloch took over the women’s sprint squad, arriving from Australia with her life packed into four suitcases. 

Like Meyer, her coaching experience was minimal. “I was a little bit nervous coming in,” the former sprinter explains. “I had only done coaching with masters athletes and juniors beforehand, then [I was] going straight into this level again. I feel like I’ve really taken it in my stride, and I’ve had a big impact on my group. I’m really enjoying it professionally. I feel like I’m thriving.” 

McCulloch’s Olympic hopefuls concur. Twenty-year-old Emma Finucane, holder of four British track titles, has reached new heights under the Australian’s tutelage. “She’s definitely brought a different light to coaching and sprinting,” Finucane says. “Her ideas are amazing and I really trust her. She’s very process driven, which I prefer, because I feel like I used to think of the outcome and not of how to get there. I used to be like, ‘I want to win’, not really knowing how.” 

It’s this focus on the process that defines McCulloch’s approach to coaching. At the National Championships in January, she gave each of her riders an individual challenge, asking them to concentrate on aspects like positioning or timing, rather than results. In fact, in her first three months in charge, McCulloch stopped her squad from looking at their splits in training. 

“There was a bit of kickback about that,” she laughs. “They didn’t like it at all. But what they’ve learned as a result of that is that they no longer, after training, go and look at their splits. They go, ‘Oh you know what, I didn’t hold the black line there, and that’s because I didn’t do this.’ For me, as a coach, I’ve done something there. I’ve changed the way they’re approaching it. 

“My dream is that we’ll go to Paris, and I don’t have to do any coaching, because I’ve taught them everything they need to know. They’re on autopilot, and I can stand back and enjoy it.” 

McCulloch’s appointment last February came as part of a 24-hour overhaul of the sprint squad coaches. The day before, with the dust having settled on Tokyo, seven-time gold medallist Kenny announced his retirement from racing, and career change to the men’s team head coach. 

Kenny’s ability as a track sprinter cannot be understated. His medal record, topped up with a gold and a silver in Tokyo, makes him Britain’s most decorated Olympian, a status that wasn’t lost on Ali Fielding when he joined the squad two years ago. “In my first year training with him, I was a bit starstruck,” the 23-year-old says. “But as you get to know him, he’s just a chill, everyday, normal bloke, which is really cool. He’s really approachable.” 

According to Fielding, Kenny’s transition from athlete to coach has been “seamless”. “It’s been really cool to go from that teammate environment to now him being my coach,” the sprinter says. “Just knowing who he is, and the pedigree he has as a rider, I think it brings in a lot of confidence, mainly. We’re in good hands.” 

This confidence, in part, has led Fielding and his team sprint teammates to a bronze medal at the World Championships, and a silver medal at the European Championships. “You can’t ignore that it’s progress,” he says, and now he’s hungry for more. “Hopefully the bronze and silvers will turn into gold.”

The outlook, it’s clear, is positive. A year out from the Olympics, a feeling of optimism radiates from within the British team, one reassured by the recruitment decisions across the track squads. 

Together with a talent pool that counts Katie Archibald, Ethan Hayter and Jack Carlin, GB’s New Guard are continuing their slow march towards Paris. They wear team-issue polo shirts, rather than bright-red tunics, and the ceremonies they’re used to take place in velodromes, not royal forecourts. By the time they reach the French capital, there’s a belief their athletes will be at the centre of the pageantry. 

Two-time Olympic gold medal winning track cyclist Katie Archibald has said she struggled with the pressure of performing at a home World Championships in Glasgow. 

The Scot, who began her racing career on the boards of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, finished fourth in the Omnium on Wednesday night, having fought valiantly for a medal in the last of the four events.  

Her disappointment came three days after the joy of winning her fifth world title, as part of the British quartet that triumphed in the team pursuit on Sunday. 

“It’s not just a loss, but it’s a frustration with yourself,” Archibald said after the Omnium. “Obviously I’m frustrated about how I went through the event as a whole. But it’s nicer to finish on a race where I feel like I’ve given it my all.” 

When the names were read out into the track centre ahead of the first event, the roar from the crowds for Archibald was unmatched. The 29-year-old placed fourth in the opening Scratch race, but struggled in the Tempo and Elimination races, coming 13th and 14th. 

She entered the final event - the Points race - in eighth, and went on to gain two laps on the field, finishing on 127 points, six off a medal. 

“It was just mistake after mistake,” she explained. “I’ve had this anxiety building, since May really, feeling like you’re waiting to be trotted out for slaughter. And I thought, ‘Well, once I get racing, it’ll be ok.’ And the Scratch didn’t go to plan.

“I’ve struggled with the pressure. To come in with form like this, it’s never one thing, and I can’t blame it on one thing. But I’ve obviously made a series of mistakes, and maybe done two proper things in a Points race, and that weighed out to fourth.” 

In recent weeks, Archibald has spoken openly about her difficulty in preparing for this year’s World Championships, which come a year after her partner, Rab Wardell, died in his sleep. 

“What’s funny is that now I feel fine, I guess because I’m a bit dejected,” she said. “I cry all the time, like at everything, mainly happy things. So when you feel disappointed with a race, it’s quite a mellow sense of sadness, compared to the bigger things we all deal with in life.” 

“[This event] was so special, and maybe that’s part of what’s gotten to me. I think I’ve probably put too much on it. Just as a fan, I’ve loved it, I’ve loved every moment. I put too much of my heart into my head, and that seemed to sort of stall my legs.” 

Emma Finucane went from being Great Britain’s next best sprinter, to its current one on Wednesday night, when she claimed a momentous first rainbow jersey. 

At just 20 years old, the Welshwoman beat the eight-time world champion Lea Sophie Friedrich (Germany) convincingly in the women's sprint, winning 2-0 in a best of three matches. 

Finucane’s victory came exactly 10 years after her compatriot, Becky James, took the same honour in the event. Since 2013, no other British woman had even medalled in the sprint, until this year’s World Championships. 

“I can’t believe I’m world champion,” she told the media, including Cycling Weekly, inside the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome. “I don’t think it’ll ever sink in, but I really wanted this. I worked really hard for this with my coach and with my team back in Manchester. It’s definitely super special.”

Finucane’s victory celebrations were muted as she rode to a halt around the track. When she finally stopped, she lay down on her back, and bathed in the applause of the crowd, before she was swarmed by a huddle of Team GB staff. 

One of those stood over her was her coach, Kaarle McCulloch. As soon as the sprinter crossed the line, the Australian punched the air, burst into tears, and ran across the track centre to congratulate her. 

“This is my last race with her,” Finucane said of her coach, who will now leave her role to return home to Australia. “To win it with her and for her is super special.

“I just needed to deliver myself on that last lap, as fast as I could, and basically give everything for that last 200m. I felt like I executed it really well.” 

On Monday, the 20-year-old qualified first for the event, setting a new British record - and sea-level world record - of 10.234 seconds in the flying 200m. She then cruised through her heats, winning each of her match-ups 2-0.

Her determination, she said, stemmed in part from the frustration she felt after Sunday’s Keirin, in which she crashed out. 

“I just used that as motivation today to give everything and show everyone that I can do it,” she said proudly. “Sprint over three days is really long, so you really have to focus for a long time. I definitely gave it to them. I just set my mindset. I knew I could do it and I just delivered.” 

Finucane’s gold medal added to her previous silver in the team sprint, and comes in a year in which she has taken four national titles, a Nations Cup victory and two silver medals at the European Championships. 

“I feel like this year has been pretty special for me, and I’ve broken through," she smiled. "But there’s still so much more to come for Paris, and I’m really excited to start that journey again." 

Elsewhere on the final day of the track events at this year’s World Championships, two-time Olympic champion Katie Archibald finished fourth in the Omnium, which was won by the USA’s Jennifer Valente. 

The Brit finished fourth in the Scratch race, the first of four events, before placing 13th and 14th in the Tempo and Elimination races. She then rode valiantly in the Points race, gaining two laps to climb to fourth overall. 

“I’ve obviously made a series of mistakes,” the 29-year-old said afterwards. “Obviously I’m frustrated about how I went through the event as a whole, but it’s nicer to finish on a race where I feel like I’ve given it my all.” 

Local hero Jack Carlin finished fifth in the Keirin, after a tense final in which Colombia’s Kevin Quintero dashed to his first world title. 

In the men’s points race, New Zealand’s Aaron Gate earned his first rainbow jersey in a decade. Great Britain’s Will Perrett, who spent two months off the bike with glandulas fever earlier this year, finished fifth. 

Ollie Wood and Mark Stewart took a stunning last-gasp silver medal in the men’s Madison at the World Championships, hopping from third to second in the final sprint. 

The British pair rode calmly throughout the 200-lap race, following moves and chipping away to earn points. With one lap to go, Stewart then swung Wood into the bunch, who thundered round the final bend to take second over the line, tallying 35 points. 

Victory went to the Dutch duo of Yoeri Havik and Jan Willem van Schip, who took 37 points. While New Zealand’s Aaron Gate and Campbell Stewart collected 34 for third. 

“We were two points off [gold],” said Stewart, who was filling in for the injured Ethan Hayter. “It’s kind of contrasting feelings. Gutted to not get the win - how amazing would that have been to deliver that? But at the same time, to be here, in Glasgow, to be on the podium, yeah [it’s] fantastic.”

Earlier in the week, the Brits had spent time between track sessions perfecting their Madison changes. When the race came, the duo’s strategy was to “bide their time”, and pounce at the end, Stewart explained.

“That was kind of the game plan,” the 27-year-old said. “Some of these guys we’re riding against have come off the Tour de France and they’re super strong, so we knew to be in with a shout, we’d have to be clever.” 

Still, so dangerous were the pair, that whenever they flirted with the idea of a lap gain, their attempts were quickly quashed. “We had a little dig before the Dutch,” Wood said, “and we looked back, and people were just towing the bunch around. They’re trying to obviously win themselves, but they’re chasing us.

“It’s the nature of the race. You can’t predict what’s going to happen, and if you could, you’d win everything. I think we’re just happy to come away with a silver.”

Throughout the race, team coach Ben Greenwood stood at the top of the banking in the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, communicating via an earpiece with women’s endurance coach Cam Meyer in the track centre. Sporadically, Greenwood shouted down encouragement to the duo. 

What was he yelling? “He was just saying, ‘You look great! You look fantastic!’,” Stewart joked. “There was more chat between them than us. They were just there for moral support.” 

Earlier in the evening, Neah Evans surrendered her points race title to Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky, placing fifth in the event. The 33-year-old, who won the Madison on Monday night with Elinor Barker, put up a valiant fight, but ultimately couldn’t follow the other favourites. 

“[The crowd] were cheering me on, and I was like, ‘I’m trying, honestly, I’m giving my all,’” the Brit said afterwards. “I’d have loved to be able to get a better result for them, but I gave it a good go.” 

Kopecky, who claimed the Elimination race on Sunday, looked effortless during the event, at times appearing as if she was breathing through her nose. “She’s so strong, and she’s been absolutely flying on the road,” said Evans. “It was always going to be tough to try and beat her.” 

There were more gold medals for Great Britain in para-cycling, as Fran Brown won the C1 Scratch race, adding to her previous success in the individual pursuit. The para-squad also won the mixed team sprint, with Neil Fachie and Matt Rotherham joining forces with Lizzie Jordan and Amy Cole to triumph in the final. 

The tandem title meant Fachie and Rotherham went home with three new rainbow jerseys, as the para-track events came to a conclusion. 

Great Britain’s men’s team pursuit squad are facing a bigger challenge than expected to qualify for the Paris Olympics, following a calamitous run at the World Championships. 

The quartet, who won the world title in Paris last year, took a shock exit in the qualifying round in Glasgow last Thursday, when Charlie Tanfield crashed on the final bend and the team failed to post a time. 

Following the Championships, in which Denmark won the event, Great Britain has tumbled down the Olympic rankings, and is among the last of the 10 spots. The team will now have to take a circuitous route to ensuring Paris qualification, explained their coach Ben Greenwood.

“We got to second in the rankings by doing well in Euros and the Nations Cups, so we’ll do that again next year,” Greenwood told Cycling Weekly. “It just makes it a little more complicated.” 

Had Great Britain passed qualifying at Worlds, the team - which comprised Dan Bigham, Ethan Vernon, Ollie Wood and Tanfield - would have earned enough points to guarantee their place at the Olympics. “We were going to come top eight for sure,” the coach said. “We were going to qualify second, which means even if you have a mishap in the next round, you’re eighth at worst.” 

Instead, Greenwood lived his “worst day of coaching”, as he watched his rider crash alone trying to close a gap. His team was then forced to bow out.

Despite the hurdle now facing them, Greenwood is confident that his quartet will be in Paris, competing for a gold medal. “With the Nations Cups, we’re probably going to have to go to all three,” Greenwood explained. “We’ll go with strong teams to two, and a slightly younger team to the third. But even the younger team still got fourth or fifth [this year], so our B team can still beat most A teams, to be honest.”

Next year’s second and third Nations Cup rounds will take place in Hong Kong and Canada, with the first still to be confirmed. The team had initially planned to only do two, but will now have to pool more resources to travel around the world. “We’re going to have to look at the overall budget and see how we use it,” Greenwood said, but added that the additional cost is “not a big concern”. 

The coach is also hopeful that Ineos Grenadiers rider Ethan Hayter will be available for selection for next year’s events. The 24-year-old, a key cog in the quartet, is recovering from a collarbone fracture and was replaced by Tanfield in the line-up for Glasgow. 

On Saturday night, Great Britain's women's team pursuit squad won the World Championships, earning their first rainbow jerseys in the event since 2014. 

British pair Elinor Barker and Neah Evans claimed victory in a chaotic and crash-strewn Madison at the World Championships on Monday night. 

The duo, who led narrowly for most of the 120-lap event, almost saw their advantage snatched away, when a crash on the penultimate lap meant the race was halted, just after Barker had roared off the front. 

Following the neutralisation, the duo composed themselves and changed their tactic to ride defensively. They won with a total of 28 points, beating Australia's Georgia Baker and Alex Manly by three. 

“My legs are screaming right now,” Barker told the press, including Cycling Weekly, inside Glasgow's Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome. “I was expecting to have maybe four more pedal revs, and swing Neah in. We were leading, we were most likely going to win the last sprint, and it was all done.” 

While the fallen riders received treatment by the trackside, Barker and Evans rode round to their coach, Cameron Meyer, for tactical advice. “Cam and Neah did a really good job of calming me down,” Barker said. “I just wanted to be like, ‘Ugh, I can’t believe it. This is so unfair.’ And they both said, ‘No, this is fine.’

“We just needed to stay safe, stay at the front, wait for someone to take it on, and we’d be absolutely fine.” 

When the gun sounded inside the velodrome, marking the end of the race, the track centre was plunged into silence. Both Barker and Evans glanced repeatedly at the scoreboard, and the moment the final tallies came in, the crowd broke into rapturous cheering.

“I was like, ‘Don’t celebrate until it comes up', because you never really know if your maths is right,” Barker laughed. “Then it was just relief when we saw it on the board. It felt so good.” 

The race was frenzied from start to finish, as Madisons typically are. As the pair swapped through turns in the bunch, slipping between rivals, their handling skills came to the fore. At one point, Evans skipped over the bikes of two crashed riders, and held herself upright to earn a ripple of applause. 

“It’s a bit surreal,” the Scot said after the race, wearing her second career rainbow jersey. “Racing World Championships are special, but to do it in front of a home crowd, on the velodrome I learned to ride on, [with] so many people up in the stands just cheering you on, it’s incredible.” 

French pair Victoire Berteau and Clara Copponi took bronze, while the defending champions, Lotte Kopecky and Shari Bossuyt (Belgium), were absent from the event, as the latter is suspended following an anti-doping positive. 

Vernon the eliminator 

Elsewhere on day five of the track events, Ethan Vernon earned himself a second world title, this time in the Elimination race. The 22-year-old was involved in a crash with eight riders remaining in the event, but kept calm and out-sprinted them all to be the last man standing. 

“[The crash] probably helped me, to be honest,” he said post-race. “I ended up going down, landed on my side, a few cuts. Sometimes when you have a crash, you get a bit more adrenaline than you had before. It gave me time to reassess.”

The Brit, who rides on the road for Soudal Quick-Step, came third in the event at last year’s Championships, and admitted he had done no preparation. “I jumped on my [bunch] bike for the first time since that race last year yesterday,” Vernon said.

“Obviously it’s not an Olympic event, but it’s always nice to get the jersey, and the watch looks quite nice this year,” he added with a laugh. 

Neil Fachie and his pilot Matt Rotherham claimed their second title of the Championships in the tandem sprint, beating the Germans 2-0 in the final. The former, who has now collected 17 rainbow jerseys, afterwards described the race as “unforgettable". 

Local hero Jack Carlin took third in the men’s sprint, which was won by the defending champion Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands). It was a bronze medal, too, for Great Britain's Sam Ruddock, after a valiant display in the men’s C1 Omnium. 

Great Britain’s women’s team pursuit squad became world champions for the first time since 2014 on Saturday night, beating New Zealand in the final in Glasgow. 

The quartet - composed of Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker, Josie Knight and Anna Morris - received a guard of honour from the GB staff once they stepped off their bikes, having clocked a 4-08.771, winning by over four and a half seconds. 

The victory proved a poignant one for Archibald, who paid tribute to her late partner Rab Wardell with a title-winning ride in her home velodrome. 

“She’s unbelievable,” said Barker, who also rode in the team with Archibald last time GB won gold at the World Championships. “It’s really hard to summarise the year she’s had, and how she feels about it, and how we feel about it. But just the fact she’s here is just insane. I don’t really know how she does it, to be honest."

The team’s display inside the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome was commanding. Having recorded the best time in both qualifying and the first round, the quartet fell behind marginally to the Kiwis at the start of their run, before Archibald took the reins at the midway point, and powered them into the lead. 

The final pull for victory fell to Knight, who crossed the line with the Kiwis in sight. 

“With a lap to go, I looked up and I could just see them,” Knight said. “I thought, ‘Even if I blow up completely here, as long as I can still see them, we’ve got this.’”

For the 26-year-old, the win marked a career-first world title - a feat that Morris and Meg Barker, who rode in the first round, also enjoyed. 

“I’ve ridden a lot of finals and come second, the biggest one being Tokyo [Olympics],” Knight said. “I’ve been wanting to win something big for a while, and this is my third team pursuit in the World Championships. 

“It’s gone bronze, silver last year, and honestly, I was just so devastated on the podium last year, and I really didn’t want that to happen again.”

France beat the defending champions Italy to the bronze medal.

Danes end Italian dominance

In the men’s team pursuit, Denmark mirrored the British women in winning all three of their runs, and the gold medal. 

The win ended a two-year streak of Italian dominance in the event, with Filippo Ganna’s quartet taking second, over two seconds down on the winning 3-45.161.

For Danish rider Rasmus Lund, the victory brought sweet revenge. “It’s good to be back,” he told Cycling Weekly. “I actually got a memory on Facebook today that it was two years ago that we lost in the final at the Olympics, exactly to the date. So it’s a bit of a revenge score. Now, it’s finally finished and we’re on top. It’s a really good feeling.”

Lund, who missed his team’s qualifier, has been struggling with two herniated discs in his spine, but was still able to pull a monstrous three-lap turn through the finish line. “I didn’t hear the bell for the last lap,” he smiled. “To be honest, I feel pretty cool. I think it’s an accomplishment that I didn’t really think was possible until today.” 

The 25-year-old was joined by Niklas Larsen, Carl-Frederik Bévort and Lasse Leth on the podium to receive their rainbow jerseys. New Zealand came third.

The British men's quartet - the defending champions - crashed out of qualifying, and did not compete in the finals. 

More para gold for GB

After winning four world titles on Friday night, GB’s para-cyclists kept the party going at the start of Saturday’s evening session, taking two rainbow jerseys in the first two events, and a third later on.

The opener went to Sam Ruddock, who successfully defended his title in the C1 kilometre time trial. When it was clear his 1-12.210 time wouldn’t be beaten, the 33-year-old jumped for joy, collapsed to his knees and thumped the floor.

“It was a feeling of relief and elation all at the same time,” said Ruddock, who has cerebral palsy. “This is an event we didn’t expect to do this well in, because it was the secondary focus next to the individual pursuit. So to get it, and to see the Chinese drop off more than I expected, was a real shock.”

When Ruddock won his first rainbow jersey in the event last year, the Chinese riders were absent from the Championships. “To still be on top, with the best in the world now being here, bodes well for [the Paralympic Games] next year,” he grinned. 

GB's second world title of the evening was claimed by Blaine Hunt who, like Ruddock, doubled his rainbow jersey count with victory in the C5 kilo. Hunt's victory in Glasgow was resounding, beating the USA’s Christopher Murphy by almost a second and a half in the four-lap event.  

In the penultimate event of the night, Jaco van Gass won the C5 Scratch race, adding to his previous title in the kilo. Van Gass pipped fellow Brit Fin Graham to the line, after the pair had gained a lap on the field. 

On his Track World Championships debut, 23-year-old Will Tidball secured a spectacular gold medal in the Scratch race, surging to victory in the final two laps.

The Brit, who lurked patiently in the bunch for most of the 60-lap race, followed the wheel of Dutchman Roy Eefting-Bloem in the finale, before powering away to the line. Fuelled by the rapture of the home crowds, Tidball then sat up in his saddle, stretched his arms out wide, and celebrated an unexpected win.

“It’s the stuff dreams are made of,” the Saint-Piran rider told Cycling Weekly inside Glasgow’s Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, still stunned by his feat. “I visualised winning here, and to do it was even better than I visualised. It’s pretty amazing. I can’t really believe this is really happening, to be honest."

Draped in a Devon flag, Tidball explained that his plan was to stay hidden during the race. "Hopefully the cameras didn’t notice me, hopefully the commentators didn’t really mention me,” he said. “I saved my bullet for the end, gambled that I’d get on a fast wheel like I did, and then went from there. If I had it, I had it. If I didn’t, I didn’t. But luckily, I did."

The men’s Scratch race was the final event of the night in Glasgow, and marked Great Britain’s second rainbow jersey of the new Super Worlds. The first came in the women’s blind one-kilometre time trial, with Sophie Unwin and her pilot Jenny Holl taking gold.

The pair were a second back on the Australian team's time entering the final lap of the four-lap race, but pulled it back to take victory by six hundredths of a second. The thrilling win was greeted with wild applause.

”It was hard but every kilo is,” Unwin said. “I didn’t know the splits, I didn’t know the times that had been done before us so I was thinking, ‘We’ve just got to go as hard as we can’. Having the crowd behind us was incredible.”

Germany go four in a row  

There was almost a rainbow jersey for Great Britain's women’s team sprint squad, too. Despite beating world-record pace in the final, the trio of Emma Finucane, Sophie Capewell and Lauren Bell ended up seven hundredths of a second short off the Germans, who clocked a 45.848 and took a fourth consecutive world title.

“It’s a little bit disappointing,” Capewell told Cycling Weekly, “but we’ve always said our goal is [the Olympics] next year. This is a big stepping stone. If we look back at how far we’ve come, we’ve knocked over half a second off our time from last year.”

After two bronze medals on the trot at the previous two Track World Championships, the silver marked Great Britain’s first in the women’s team sprint since 2011. That year, when the event was just two riders, the team was pipped to gold by an Australian duo led by Kaarle McCulloch, the British squad’s current coach.

“Obviously everyone wants to win the rainbow jersey,” said Finucane. “We’ve stepped up our processes and tried to nail every ride and execute as best we could. And I feel like we did that. We couldn’t have given much more. Silver’s amazing, and looking into Paris next year, it’s really exciting.”

Dygert dominates

In the women’s individual pursuit, the USA’s Chloé Dygert clinched her first rainbow jersey since her horror crash in 2020. The 26-year-old caught the reigning world champion, Franziska Brauße (Germany), on the home straight to record a time of 3-17.542.

Great Britain’s Neah Evans finished fourth, one second off a bronze medal. “It wasn’t the original plan to do the individual pursuit,” she told Cycling Weekly afterwards. “I did one training effort two days ago and was like, ‘Right, let’s wing it, see what happens.’”

The Scot, the defending points race world champion, will target three further events over the next week: the Madison, points race and the team pursuit.

Disaster struck for the men's team pursuit squad - the defending champions - when they failed to qualify for the first round of the event. During the quartet's morning run, Charlie Tanfield came down alone in a crash on the final bend, meaning they did not clock a time.

Tanfield was immediately transferred to hospital, where he was found to have suffered a concussion. Despite falling hard on his shoulder, the 26-year-old's X-rays came back as normal.

There was a new world record on Thursday afternoon for five-time Paralympic gold medallist Jody Cundy. The 44-year-old Brit beat his previous best flying 200m in the C4 Omnium by six hundredths of a second, stopping the clock at 10.427

Speaking afterwards, Cundy described the record as a “nice little surprise”. 

“I’ve been struggling to find a bit of speed lately. Also, we don’t get to do this event that often, and it was quite frustrating watching last year’s Omnium thinking, ‘Oh I quite fancy a 200m’,” he added. “World record, can’t complain.”

Kaarle McCulloch, Great Britain Cycling Team women’s sprint podium coach, has announced that she will step down from her role, just 15 months after being appointed.

The former Olympic bronze medallist will continue to lead the squad until after the UCI Cycling World Championships in August, when she will vacate her post and return to her native Australia. 

In a press release shared by British Cycling on Wednesday, McCulloch cited a struggle in balancing her new life in Manchester with her family life back home. 

She said: “In all the time that I have been involved in sport there has not been a more rewarding period than my time coaching the women's podium sprint team at GBCT.    

“I’m sad that I am unable to see out this Olympic cycle but it has been increasingly difficult to balance living in Manchester with commitments to my partner and family.” 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly at January's National Track Championships, McCulloch offered greater detail about the challenge. “I think I definitely underestimated the complexities of moving country," she said. 

"I’ve always travelled my whole life, so I didn’t really think too much of that. But when you turn to a new country, with four suitcases, your whole life there, and then try to figure out a whole new place… It’s really been hard. And things haven’t worked out for my partner, either, with visas and things like that.”   

The 35-year-old joined the Great Britain Cycling Team in February 2022, taking over from Jan van Eijden, in what was her first elite-level coaching role. She conducted her initial training sessions online, before relocating to the UK in April.

Over the past year, McCulloch's process-driven approach has helped guide the women’s sprint team to a bronze medal at the World Championships, silver at the European Championships, and seen her athletes Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell take a one-two in a round of the Nations Cup.

In an interview with Cycling Weekly earlier this year, Finucane said she was “loving” working with the Australian. “She’s definitely brought a different light to coaching and sprinting,” the 20-year-old Olympic hopeful said. “Her ideas are amazing, and I really trust her. I feel like we make a really good team, especially with all the girls around, and we’ve stepped up already with her.” 

McCulloch will begin a new role later this year within the Queensland Academy of Sport's cycling development programme.

Stephen Park, Great Britain Cycling Team performance director, said: “Kaarle has been an incredible asset to the team, not only developing her riders as successful, medal-winning athletes, but also as individuals off the bike. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank her for her contribution to the team and wish her every success in the future. 

“I am confident that the focus and resilience of our riders, and the support they will receive from wider staff and coaches, will enable them to continue their fantastic momentum as we proceed towards the Paris Olympic Games.”

British Cycling's search for McCulloch's successor is already underway, with a hope of finding a replacement soon, ahead of next summer’s Olympics.

A local cycling team at this year’s Science in Sport Tour de Lunsar, the biggest bike race in Sierra Leone, turned up to the start line on Wednesday wearing an assortment of Team GB kit. 

There were skinsuits and jerseys, mismatched in white and blue, some dating back around a decade. 

But where did it all come from? 

Sources involved with the Lunsar Cycling Team, whose junior team wore the kit, revealed to Cycling Weekly that the GB gear came as part of a donation from the Hayter family, and was previously owned by Ineos Grenadiers duo Ethan and Leo. 

The kit was offered to the team by the brothers’ father, Tim Hayter, who had gathered a collection of his sons’ old GB academy gear over the years, much of it still unworn. 

"As with most parents of cyclists, we'd ended up with a loft full of old cycling kit, dozens of skinsuits, base layers, bib shorts and so on," Tim told Cycling Weekly. "We wanted to get the space back, so I tweeted in January asking if anyone knew the best way to get rid of 10 years of accumulated old kit." 

One of those who responded was Tom Owen, founder of cycling marketing company Fausto Agency, who helps fundraise for the Tour de Lunsar. 

"He offered to take everything," Tim said. "The unused jerseys - quite a lot of the kit was still in cellophane - he sold to pay for the transport, and everything else was then shipped to Sierra Leone.

"That was the last I heard of it until today when I saw that clip of the kids in the kit. [It's] so great to see the skinsuits being put to good use." 

Access to quality cycling equipment is scarce in Sierra Leone, a country considered among the poorest in the world.

This is not the first time local riders at the Tour de Lunsar have worn donated clothing. In previous years, Lunsar Cycling Team members have been photographed wearing EF Pro Cycling jerseys, donated by Lachlan Morton at the end of the 2019 season. The Australian also sent shoes, helmets, mitts, caps and bib shorts to the squad.

“The haul donated by Lachlan Morton has quickly become the best cycling kit in the whole of Sierra Leone, such is the position the country is in,” the team wrote on its website at the time. “We are always open to kit donations whatever type of cycling kit it is, old and new.” 

Other riders who have donated kit include Dan Martin, previously of UAE Team Emirates and Israel-Premier Tech, and FDJ-Suez’s Grace Brown, who Cycling Weekly understands made a sizeable donation for those competing in the race. 

Founded a decade ago by bike mechanic Abdul Karim Kamara, the five-day Tour de Lunsar comprises a junior race, a women’s race and a four-stage men’s event, which concludes this Sunday 30 April. 

Further information about donating to the Lunsar Cycling Team can be found on the team's website. 

Later this week, Elinor Barker and Katy Marchant will head off to Grenchen, Switzerland in what will be their first major track event since giving birth last year. 

“It’ll be really nice that we can be there to support each other,” says Barker. “As much as I think other team-mates can be really supportive, no one really knows how it feels to leave your baby at home for such a long period of time if they’ve not done it themselves before.” 

When she’s away with her trade team Uno-X, Barker’s son Nico is part of the family. He spends his days being looked after, before joining up with the squad in the evenings for a chit chat and some dinner.

“He would eat everything from the buffet,” Barker laughs. “He had olives one night and he’s 10 months old. He’s just a bottomless pit.” 

Spending time with her son on training camps has served Barker well. She’s excited to take on the season, and feels her best form is quickly returning. Still, she knows the stakes will be high in Grenchen. 

“If I didn’t go to Euros and compete in these events, I can’t do the Olympics, because that’s how the qualifying works,” she says. 

This week, she’s set herself the task of collecting all of her qualifying points in one fell swoop. To do so, Barker will ride the Elimination race, before teaming up with Olympic champion Katie Archibald in the Madison. She’s keen to win, but admits her outlook on racing has changed since having a child. 

“I used to get really nervous about races because I’d think ‘Oh God, what if I lose?’ and then I’ll just have to come home and sit with that disappointment,” she says. “I still care exactly the same amount as I did before, I just don’t have enough time to think about it.”

When Barker first found out she was pregnant, she and Marchant were sharing a room in Tokyo, Japan at the 2021 Olympics. “[Marchant] got pregnant not long after getting back,” she says. “We’ve been really close through that whole period, so it’s been really nice that we’ve been able to be there for each other.

“She literally just sent me a picture of her little boy in her National Champs jersey, which is so cute.”

The jersey in question came from Marchant’s title-winning ride in the team sprint at last month's British Track Championships, only her second competition back since becoming a mother. Once the 30-year-old stepped off the podium in Newport, Wales, she headed straight towards her son, Arthur, picking him up in one hand, while clutching her victory bouquet in the other.

“I’m feeling a little bit rusty,” Marchant tells Cycling Weekly after the race, “but it’s so good to be back.”

Like Barker, the sprinter’s perspective on racing has changed. “I’ve stepped away for 18 months. I’ve had a child. I don’t care any less about cycling, but I have bigger things to care about now,” she said. “It allows me to come to training and that’s my time away, that’s time for me.” 

Over the past two years, Marchant has tried to ride her bike as much as possible. She trained right up until the end of her pregnancy, and then returned to the track shortly after childbirth. 

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a challenge,” she says. “But to me, I thought there was no way that I was going to stop. I really wanted to push my body to the boundaries and just see where I can get to really.” 

That place, she hopes, is next year’s Olympics in Paris. 

Barker, too, would like to be there, but for the team pursuit gold medallist, there’s another big event circled on her calendar. 

“Every race, my target will be trying to prove that I’m good enough to go to the Tour,” she explains. “That’s what I really want to get from this season.”

Barker describes the newly introduced Tour de France Femmes as a “shining beacon of light”, which has left a lasting impact on her and the wider world of women’s cycling. “It’s already made a huge difference,” she says. “The changes in the professionalism of teams over the last few years has just been huge. 

“I started my career 10 years ago, not being paid. Now I’m on a team where I’ve got maternity pay and a pension.” 

When Barker and Marchant take to the track in Grenchen later this week, they'll follow in a line of British Olympians - including Lizzie Deignan, Laura Kenny and Sarah Storey - who have taken time out to have children, and returned to the top tier of racing. 

The duo's day-to-day lives are different to what they were before, and training time is precious, but they're excited to race once again on the international stage.

The European Track Championships start this Wednesday 8 February, and run until Sunday 12 February. 

Fred Wright is a track rider at heart. 

As a child, he'd ride down to his local velodrome in Herne Hill, London and race around the concrete banking with his friends. It turned out he had a real knack for it. Then the road came calling, and he was whisked away by the romantic promise of Grand Tours and Classics.

Next week, though, Wright’s going back to his roots. He’s been selected by British Cycling to compete at the European Track Championships, in what will be his first major competition with the national squad since 2019. 

How’s he feeling about it? “A little bit nervous to see how the track legs are going to be,” he says, "but that’s kind of the whole reason I’m doing it. I guess it’s to see how I can combine them both [road and track], not just doing the training, but in a racing scenario.” 

For Wright, the championships are a “test”, a chance to prove to himself and his team, Bahrain Victorious, that he can juggle different racing disciplines and still perform at his best. 

“Speaking to my coach [at Bahrain], it basically works well,” he says. “They’re happy for me to crack on with it as long as I don’t break myself. Touch wood.

“The sports directors for the Classics, the one thing they said was it seems like a good thing to be doing, for the speed and everything, but just don’t wreck yourself.” 

Although he hasn’t raced with GB for over three years, Wright’s certainly not out of practice. Before Christmas, the 23-year-old travelled to Ghent, Belgium, to take part in a six-day track cycling event with close friend and compatriot Ethan Hayter. Next week, he's now down to ride the Elimination race and the Madison, alongside team pursuit world champion Ollie Wood, in Grenchen, Switzerland. 

“I’m definitely stronger,” he says, recalling his earlier GB call-ups. “I didn’t quite have the legs back then. I think what I was missing then I definitely have now, which is plenty of Grand Tours in the legs, that fitness.”

Still, he insists, the pressure’s off. Wright’s plan for the European Championships is to enjoy himself, but he’ll do so with one eye on next summer’s Olympics in Paris. 

“That’s something I’m going to push for,” he says. “This opportunity has reignited that ambition to be at an Olympics and also be going for a medal. I guess maybe it’s always been there.

“Going to the Olympics was an ambition of mine since I started properly getting into cycling, and the way things have gone haven’t led to that. Now I’m in a position where there’s a possibility of that.”

For the squad in Paris, GB endurance coach Ben Greenwood will be able to select four riders, and borrow a fifth from another discipline, such as road or mountain biking. This is where Wright could slot in. His hope is to ride the road race and the Madison. "That’s sort of what I’m aiming for,” he says. 

Before that, though, he’ll have to prove that he’s strong enough. He’ll be up against many of the world’s best track talents at the European Championships, giving him the perfect opportunity to show his level and tactical awareness on the boards.  

“It all seems to be falling into place quite nicely,” Wright says, “but I won’t know until I’m 150 laps in how much of a good decision it was. Maybe I’ll regret everything.” 

He smiles, before nonchalantly adding: “If it goes tits up, I’ve got plenty of road races to look forward to.”