Fresh off her first podium finish in Glasgow, track cycling star Ellesse Andrews admits her return to the track has required some getting used to.
Taking into account the elite peaks she’s scaled during her decorated career, the four-time Olympic medallist and double Olympic champion has had a somewhat mixed bag at her third Commonwealth Games.
A day later Andrews was ousted at the quarter-final stage of the individual sprint, another premature end to a games title defence.
The 26-year-old scrapped her way to a bronze medal overnight in the 1km time trial final, and now has her sights set on defending her Commonwealth Games Keirn title on the final day of racing.
After receiving her fifth Games medal, and first ever bronze, Andrews said she was delighted with the result.
“I’m really stoked to be walking away with a bronze medal today. The kilo is a really brutal event, so I’m just really happy I was able to put it out there,” she told reporters.
“It’s so hard. I think before we go into it, we know that we need to absolutely punch the first lap and the second lap and then the third, we need to really keep it rolling and the fourth is just about holding on.”
For the next 24 hours it was all about recovery ahead of her fourth and final event of her games campaign.
Andrews has spent much of the year in the Keirin world series circuit in Japan and said the limited time on the track had required some adjustment.
“I knew that it was always going to be interesting, I think, coming off the back of, I guess, my campaign in Japan, not having a whole lot of racing on the track.
“So I think, just getting back into this environment has been different. Not really challenging as such, but just really different to what I’ve been used to.
“So I guess that has been a bit of an adjustment, but not in a negative way.”
Andrews lines up in the first round of the Keirin on Sunday night from 8.25pm.