Good-time Charlie is riding into golden era
TwO months ago, charlie Tanfield was just an amateur cyclist getting into bother for missing his university lectures. Yesterday, he taught the british talentspotters a lesson they won’t forget as he collected a marvellous gold medal.
It was the highlight of the commonwealth games so far for the England team, who will win golds by the barrowload but none as charming as this one in the 4km individual pursuit.
First, the raw details of his evening. The 21-year- old Yorkshireman led Scotland’s John archibald from the start of the final and held off a fightback to win the title, having qualified earlier with a games record and the third fastest time in history.
lovely stuff in its own right but the beauty of Tanfield’s tale can be fully appreciated only when viewed in the bonkers context of how his life has played out in the past year.
a mechanical engineering student at the University of derby, he was a part-time cyclist who somehow never quite found himself in the eyeline of british cycling.
but he had ability and after he and a few other amateurs caused ripples by beating british team members at the 2017 national championships, they got serious, moved into a derby flat together and tried to crack the sport.
They burnt their way through credit cards and his student loan to keep the wheels turning and soon they started winning. and winning.
Tanfield earned his first britain call-up only in February, for the world championships, and after deferring from university he won team pursuit gold on that debut national team outing.
From that achievement to this one, via a commonwealth games team pursuit silver on Thursday, it has been astonishing.
‘It’s unbelievable,’ he said. ‘Two years ago when I went to the nationals my ultimate goal was to get to a commonwealth games.
‘I think I’ve achieved a bit more than that now. The results just keep on coming and it’s so good to keep on proving myself on the world stage.’
a measure of his talent comes from his heats time of 4min 11.455sec, which was less than a second shy of the world record and quicker than each of bradley wiggins’s two Olympic gold medal- winning runs in the discipline.
Tanfield’s time in the final was slower at 4:15.952 and there were moments after a rapid start that he felt his gold was in danger.
He led by 1.790sec after the first kilometre but ultimately he won by only 0.704.
‘It was absolutely epic,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t ask for any more, really. I knew I was in a good place after qualifying but towards the end of that final I thought I almost messed it up for a second but I managed to hold on until the finish so I’m absolutely ecstatic with the result.’
It was easily the highlight of the day for Team England, who also claimed golds through Sarah Vasey in the 50metres breaststroke and para- swimmer alice Tai in the S9 100m backstroke.
Their success extended England’s impressive haul from the pool and compensated for the 200m freestyle final disappointment of James guy, who finished fourth.
The 2015 world champion led going into the final length but faded badly.
The swimming tally stands at six golds and will surely grow today when adam Peaty goes in the 100m breaststroke final.
He broke the commonwealth record yesterday in winning his semi-final and was a full second clear of the field.
The Olympic champion is unbeaten in four years in the discipline and that streak is highly unlikely to be broken.
He said: ‘ Everyone’s beatable, including me, but I want to defend my titles for four years and that’s what I’ve come here to do.
‘I haven’t come here to go really, really fast because that’s just not in our plan. I want to peak in worlds, I want to peak in Olympics. This is the kind of year where I turn up, defend those titles and go home.’
England’s women took silver in the gymnastics team event.