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<\/p>\nWhen the double Olympic gold medallist Katie Archibald began cycling competitively, her ambitions were modest.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou meet kids that want to be world champion, and kids that want to be Olympic champion,\u201d said Archibald, 31. \u201cBut I think the other bucket, which is the one that I fell into, is you want to be able to keep up with your big brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Archibald that meant pursuing greatness in swimming and cycling \u2014 the two sports her brother chose. She remembers bleak winter mornings riding to swimming training at 5am. <\/p>\n
Cycling was also a way to maintain a social life in the Glasgow suburbs. Her early memories on two wheels are all about gaining her own freedom, travelling to see her friends in town. <\/p>\n
She quit swimming at around 15 as she was struggling to balance the commitment with an increasingly busy social life. \u201cThere was this disconnect between who I wanted to be and what the sport was letting me be,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to hang out with my friends and have my weekends free. Spending seven days a week with your head underwater didn\u2019t really align with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That led her to turn the sport that had given her freedom into a career, after realising that her active lifestyle was now missing a competitive edge. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was going on all these bike rides with my dad and other middle-aged men and a family friend said, \u2018Should you not really be riding bikes with people your own size?\u2019, and sent me some information for this talent ID programme with the Scottish Institute of Sport.\u201d It was then that she discovered track cycling and her talent on two wheels was put to best use.<\/p>\n
She won bronze aged 20 in the points race at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow \u2014 an achievement she describes as a \u201cspringboard\u201d for later accomplishments, which included Olympic golds in the team pursuit at Rio in 2016 and in the Madison with Laura Kenny at Tokyo in 2021.<\/p>\n
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With her bronze in 2014 \u2026<\/p>\n
RICHARD PELHAM FOR NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS<\/p>\n
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\u2026 and celebrating Olympic gold with Kenny in Tokyo<\/p>\n
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND<\/p>\n
Now, 11 years on from her home games, having secured world records and world championship titles, she and the legendary crop of British cyclists she competed with have successfully inspired the next generation. In a return to her roots, Archibald will compete at another home Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year.<\/p>\n
A handful of her contemporaries, including Kenny, have already retired. However, after missing the Paris Olympics due to a freak injury sustained at home, Archibald still has hopes of competing in Los Angeles in 2028 even as her demanding career is starting to take its toll.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve really pushed against friends that all roll out the same line of, \u2018You hit 30 and you start to feel it, don\u2019t you?\u2019 \u2026 I\u2019d go, \u2018Listen, I\u2019ve had pain since I was 14\u2019. My body\u2019s been in pain for ever. This isn\u2019t new.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like it would be a waste not to use all this knowledge that I have. I\u2019ve become an expert in this thing. When your body breaks down, how else do I use that expertise? I could go into coaching and I really love chatting to the youngsters about racing, or to my team-mates about racing and about training plans and different approaches, but I just don\u2019t imagine that that\u2019s what my future is like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another up-and-coming cyclist has mirrored both Archibald\u2019s success and her journey into the sport. Erin Boothman, 18, a fellow Glaswegian, is already a junior world champion. Speaking from a Manchester training camp in mid-December also attended by Archibald, Boothman revealed how the older cyclist had inspired her: \u201cI think [Archibald] has a really good outlook on training. In every training session \u2026 she always wants to be criticised. She\u2019s just always trying to better herself, even though she is already one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world.\u201d <\/p>\n
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Boothman has also spent time training in Spain in December<\/p>\n
Echoing Archibald\u2019s own route into the sport, Boothman said cycling was \u201csuch an escape\u201d not just when she was younger \u201cbut also now \u2026 you get that little rush of happy endorphins because you\u2019re out in the countryside, or you\u2019re out riding your bike, and no one is really around you\u201d.<\/p>\n
Boothman is waiting to hear whether she will be competing alongside Archibald in Glasgow next year. She believes the next Olympics may arrive too soon for her to represent Team GB in LA.<\/p>\n
Archibald missed the last Olympics after a freak incident in her garden led to a double leg break and ligament damage. She swiftly returned in time to clinch gold<\/a> in the team pursuit at the world championships in October, weeks after the Paris Games, but struggled mentally in the aftermath of what should have felt like a monumental victory.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so, so grateful that I had the worlds as a goal. But it was, I guess, a bit of a crutch for coping with the disappointment of missing Paris,\u201d she said. \u201cFor everybody that made it to the Games, those world championships were not as important to them as they were to me. I really struggled quite a bit after that.\u201d<\/p>\n