OWAIN DOULL

Team Sk y’s Olympic track star turned classics specialist on Lego, coding and Flanders

What’s your favourite race?

The Tour of Flanders. The classics are the races I get most excited about and I’ve always grown up watching them and wanted to be there. It’s either that or Roubaix, but there’s something for me that makes Flanders the more special one. I think it’s the atmosphere, especially when you do the build-up races to it: Harelbeke, Wevelgem...

What’s your favourite climb?

The climb I use the most and probably go up every day is Long Hill in the Peak District. I spend half my life on that climb; it’s a really nice, long, continuous gradient. You can get efforts done there so easily.

Who is the best domestique in the peloton?

Luke Rowe, from the experiences I’ve had racing with him and seeing what he does and how he operates. He’s just the ultimate professional. Whether he’s racing Roubaix or the Herald Sun Tour he has the same motivation and desire to get the best result with the team.

Who is your funniest team-mate?

Ed Clancy. I spent a lot of time with Ed during the Olympic cycles and doing all the Track World Cups. He’s one of those people, whenever you see him you’re just happy to see him. He’s like a big kid.

What’s your secret talent?

I can speak Welsh fluently. I went to a Welsh language first school and all my family speak Welsh. Either that or building Lego quickly. I don’t do so much of it on the road because if I buy Lego on a race to build I’d probably end up just leaving it at the hotel. But when I’m home I’m quite into my Lego. The best thing I’ve built is a replica of the Apollo space rocket - it took about seven hours.

What’s the last app you downloaded?

A coding app. I saw it on the app store and it piqued my interest. It’s such a big thing nowadays, I thought I’d see what it’s all about. It’s called Playgrounds… I thought I could try and do something quite constructive instead of watching Netflix all the time.

What’s the best prize you’ve won?

When I was on the GB Academy we were on a month’s stint in Belgium and someone looked at the primes for one of the kermesses. Some of them were four or five kilos of chicken. We were living out there and had to buy our own food, cook for ourselves... I went full gas for these primes, got both of them; everyone was super excited, celebrating doing chicken dances, and when we went to collect it, it was actually 10 kilos of chocolate. I don’t know who did the translation on it!

What result are you proudest of in your career up to now?

The Olympic Games - to win the team pursuit [in 2016] with a world record... It’s something I aspired to do once I really got onto the GB team when I was 18. I moved to Manchester for the Academy. It was a four-year process to get there.

“I went full gas for these primes, got both of them, and everyone was super excited, celebrating doing chicken dances”