RIDER ON THE STORM

Through plenty of dark times, Skinner has been left with nothing but his bike Now, though, he is fully focused on the future and enjoying his time in the light

“You can be dropped. It has happened. It didn’t at Rio”

THERE is a darkness. ‘You can ruin yourself. What makes you win is your ability to absolutely empty yourself. In ten seconds.’

The young man takes a gulp of his scrambled egg, pauses and says: ‘From where I am now, relaxed and breathing easily, to complete exhaustion in ten seconds. That’s what I have to do.’

There is another hesitation. ‘I have been in events where you come to the last turn and this darkness comes in from the side. Your vision is getting blurred anyway, but your sight becomes restricted as if in a tunnel.

‘Your breathing becomes tight. Your legs are screaming. Your chest is screaming. You are at the point of losing consciousness. It is a point that a lot of athletes like. You know you have emptied yourself, you have given your best, you have given your all.’

This is how Callum Skinner earns his living. The dividend is paid in the gold and silver of Olympic medals.

‘It takes a lot of motivation to push yourself that hard. So it is important that you only do it when it matters. And that is for medals,’ adds the 24-year-old Scot.

This is no bow to any lack of effort on occasion rather an indication that such desperate lunges can only be made after due preparation and on targeted occasions.

Skinner’s race to exhaustion was gilded by gold in the team sprint and silver in the individual sprint at the Olympics in Rio.

He had achieved a dream, eight years in the making. He had overcome the turmoil of his parents splitting up, he had triumphed over a dyslexia that had caused great personal pain and he had dealt with a tentative diagnosis of cancer that blessedly proved to be erroneous but caused a month of anguish. There is a darkness. ‘Three or four weeks after the Games, I was on top of the world,’ says Skinner. ‘Then the low came. I had one or two of my darkest days in that period. In many ways it was worse than the cancer scare and the dyslexia because I had no sympathy for myself.

‘I kept telling myself: “I am an Olympic gold and silver medallist. What I am down about?”. It had been my sole focus for so long.

‘In the run-up to Rio, the stress was so intense I was getting into fights with my girlfriend at the time because I could not have my orthopaedic pillow when I was staying over.

‘Then that huge intensity is gone and you don’t know how to deal with that.’ There is a light. The bike that had been the focus of such stress became the reliever of it. In truth, it always had been. The rows at home, the difficulties in the classroom, the worries about health and happiness had all been solved by jumping on his bike.

This reaction was given a purpose when he headed down to the velodrome at Meadowbank, showing significant talent and meeting Chris Hoy, the cycling legend he eventually replaced in the Olympic team.

When the post-Olympic low came, he flew to Australia in December.

‘No one could call me. No one could ask me to do anything,’ reveals Skinner. ‘I just rode my bike in the sun, in the warmth. I came back for Christmas. I have slowly found my way back.’

Skinner has now finished his eggs in a café in Manchester not far from the velodrome where he is preparing for a tilt at the world championships and, yes, the Olympics in Tokyo. His road to the top of track cycling has been rapid but hardly smooth.

These travails have plumbed the profound depths of his athletic talent. They have, too, revealed a fine young man who is intrigued by his troubles rather than overwhelmed by them.

The break-up in the relationship of his parents took a toll at a young age.

‘There were rocky moments,’ he says. This turmoil was worsened by Skinner’s dyslexia.

‘I did not get diagnosed until S3 and I had a pretty tough time getting support. My vocabulary is good. I can articulate pretty well but I could not do times tables, for example,’ he adds. ‘I could do the two times and the five times. That was it. They sent me out of class with this other boy and told him: “Don’t bring Callum back until he can do it”.’

The hurt of this was severe but he was supported by a mother who would not rest until her son’s problem was diagnosed and addressed. Skinner reacted by gaining university qualifications.

He also, typically, finds an upside to his dyslexia.

‘I am not interested in numbers, so I don’t have an obsession with personal bests or stuff like that. Guys can get bogged down in that.

‘I operate kind of by feel. It is more intuitive. If I think I have done something special, then the guys will look through my data to back it up.’

He’s rarely wrong. He is regularly singular. ‘A coach once told me that if there is a way to do something and there is option A and option B, then I will choose option C,’ he says. ‘I approach things in a different way. But you need to take on opinions in a team, and I do.’

His mantra has always been to ‘look at the problem that is causing the problem’. He learned this from his dyslexia.

‘They were always trying to improve my handwriting but my writing was bad because I wanted to disguise the fact I could not spell,’ he continues.

He has learned, too, from illness. A lump on his neck in 2011 was thought initially to be a cancerous lymphoma.

‘The specialist was pretty sure

about it,’ says Skinner (below). But it was eventually diagnosed as atypical glandular fever. Curiously, his asthma caused him greater angst. A sufferer from childhood, a veteran of emergency admission to A&E, his use of medicine under a therapeutic use exemption was revealed online. He reacted by publishing all his medical records. It was a bold, unprecedented response.

‘I believe in transparency,’ he says. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

This honesty extends to the demands of elite sport. An individual sprinter good enough to win a silver medal at Rio, he holds third spot in the sprint team. His job is to tail two of the greatest sprinters in the world — Philip Hindes and Jason Kenny — and then produce a devastating burst. ‘The danger is that you can be dropped,’ he says. ‘That has happened in the past. It didn’t happen at Rio. ‘There is no feeling like it in the world,’ he says of the realisation of his dream. ‘We broke the Olympic record, beat the world champions. You have worked for that one goal. And it has been realised. It is complete elation. It was a high that seemed to last for ages.’ But it dissipated in the realities of life. The boy who was fast-tracked to greatness, chosen for the elite programme after showing an early potential distinguished by titles and breaking Hoy-age records, suddenly found himself stalled after the ultimate success.

However, a drive for sporting success has returned with a commendable energy.

‘I am stronger,’ says Skinner, ‘because of everything that has happened. I know this is what I want to do.’

His family — mother, Judith, father, Scott and brother Roy — were in the velodrome to watch him win gold. ‘It was only the second time my parents had watched me in competition together,’ he says. ‘It was just great for that to happen at the biggest event of my life. All my anxiety slipped away. That was a victory in itself.’

There can be a darkness but it will pass. There are moments of brilliance that are destined to endure.