I COULDN’T SCARE LESS
WORLD OF SPORT It wasn’t looking good but colourful Katie hits back to nab world title KENNY THINKS IT COULD BE TIME TO QUIT
KATE ARCHIBALD admits her individual style used to shock GB cycling bosses as the Scot produced a scarily good comeback to become a world champion.
The 23-year-old from Milngavie won the opening two of four disciplines in the omnium at Track Cycling World Championships.
But she thought she’d blown her chances coming to the end of the concluding points race.
Archibald managed to hang on to her lead and put on a world champion’s rainbow jersey to complement her shock of pink hair.
After finishing ahead of Holland’s Kirsten Wild and Amy Cure of Australia, Archibald said: “I thought it was home time.
“There was a point where I kept chasing. I put way too much into the chase watching Cure. And Wild just kept swinging up, swinging up.
“So I thought, ‘Well, I’m just going to have to chase’. And then she attacks and I thought ‘I’m going to lose’.
“For it to happen the way it did, thinking I was either going to be last or first, was very confusing emotionally.”
Archibald’s striking individualism was apparent when she first came to the attention of British Cycling in 2013.
With a pierced lip, tattoos and coloured hair, she caught the attention of then head coach Shane Sutton. Archibald added: “The first time I met Shane he comes up to me and says, ‘You look f ****** terrifying’ and just walks away. And I don’t think he meant it as a compliment.”
Archibald laughed off the comments and the former junior swimmer has come a long way since.
It was her second world title after the team pursuit success in Colombia in 2014 at her first Track World Championships.
She added: “People always say, ‘If you win you somehow get the energy’. I don’t have that. I crossed the line and it still hurts. I did a victory lap and I thought, ‘Oh no, they’re not cheering any longer’.
“I miss not having the girls to jump around with. With this it’s been a bit of a lonely haul.”
Archibald is back in action today when she competes in the three-kilometres individual pursuit, while GB team-mates Elinor Barker and Emily Nelson race in the first Track World Championships women’s Madison. SIX-TIME Olympic champion Jason Kenny could be set to retire according to his wife Laura.
The 29-year-old won three Olympic golds in Rio last August to draw level with Sir Chris Hoy as Great Britain’s most successful Olympian.
Kenny is missing this week’s Track Cycling World Championships in Hong Kong, taking an extended break as he considers whether to continue to the Tokyo 2020 Games – or quit altogether.
Four-time Olympic champion Laura Kenny, expecting the couple’s first child, said: “He’s having six months to decide what he wants to do, whether to carry on or whether to retire.
“I’m not sure he even knows. As athletes you always want to carry on, you always want to go to the next one. He’s going to give himself a bit of time.
“As athletes you become this selfabsorbed kind of person, everything’s just about you. But there are bigger things in life than that.”
Olympic silver medallist Callum Skinner exited the men’s sprint competition in Hong Kong with a second-round loss to Germany’s Max Niederlag.