Patrick takes to track in bid to race for Scotland

Fife’s Alison Patrick won triathlon silver at the Rio Paralympics, but so strong is her desire to compete for Scotland that she is giving track cycling a go.

Patrick is visually impaired and will ride in the tandem discipline with pilot Helen Scott at this week’s Para-cycling Track Cycling World Championships in Los Angeles.

The event runs from today until Sunday and was confirmed with just seven weeks’ notice, so the entry list is light. Great Britain are sending six tandems, including Patrick and Scott.

Patrick said: “Triathlon is still my main aim. It was just I had a notion that I’d love to represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games.

“When I was younger I represented Scotland at a mountain running competition, but unless you do able-bodied sport there’s not that much opportunity.

“We did a bit of track cycling last year and my coach said we’ll see how we go.

“It’s completely different, mainly because I’m going from an endurance sport to a sprint discipline.”

Patrick is only able to train with Scott twice a week, but she is unfazed heading to California at short notice.

“It was always going to be a last-minute thing,” she said.

“It’s just meant we’ve had to rush learning the skills, because it is quite technical. I’m only going to keep improving until we go. I know in my heart I if I had a year, two years, I’d be in a better place, but that’s not what we’ve got. I can only do what I can do.”

She remains funded for triathlon, so she has to juggle swimming and running training with road cycling and time on the track.

It is something Scott, a sprinter and Paralympic champion in the onekilometre time-trial with Sophie Thornhill, cannot fathom.

Patrick added: “She’s so sprint focused. It’s a different mentality.

“I’d say to her we’ve got a four-hour ride after a track session and she’d say, ‘What? That’s impossible’. It’s just different worlds. Even the thought of running would scare her.”

Alison Patrick with her Paralympics silver medal.