Stewart risk pays off with gold reward
MARK STEWART produced the ride of his life to win the points race at the Anna Meares velodrome — after a ‘stupid’ early break paid off in grand style. The Scot, who has been suffering from a burst eardrum, bagged 20 points by gaining a lap on the field early in the complex 40k event. He then held off sustained attacks from New Zealand’s Cameron Stewart and Aussie favourite Cameron Meyer — helped enormously by teammates John Archibald and Kyle Gordon — to claim the gold. With Neah Evans taking silver in the scratch race and Callum Skinner winning bronze in the kilo, Team Scotland rounded off the track programme with a total of ten medals — their best ever haul at a single Games. Stewart said of his brutally brave ride: ‘I had to go off on my own at the start, didn’t I? ‘That was stupid — but it worked. My only plan going into that race was I’d just do nothing for the first 40 laps and I actually did the opposite. But it worked. ‘I like to go off instinct — and it shows. I feel like I’m a racer. I’ve maybe not got the biggest sprint or the biggest engine, but I’ve got tactical nous and a feel for a race. ‘You just kind of feel these things. It’s in your bones. ‘I have worked hard but I get to ride a bike for a living. I get to race for a living. It is a privilege. ‘It does make it sweeter to have this calibre of racer riding. I grew up watching Meyer racing. ‘I raced against him for the first time at the 2017 Hong Kong worlds and he ran rings round me. ‘I remember coming off thinking: “How do you beat that guy?”. And I got my answer. That is quite cool.’ Stewart’s performance was made all the more remarkable by the revelation that his preparations had been disrupted. ‘I burst my eardrum a week ago,’ he said, quickly adding: ‘That’s not even an excuse, it didn’t affect my performance. ‘I did it in the sea. I was having fun. We went into Sydney for the day and it is good for the head. I don’t like sitting in hotel rooms all day. If it is good for the head, it is good for the legs. ‘I have got bad eardrums anyway but I dived under and it just popped. I was so far out, I started to go dizzy, so I swam back in. ‘I didn’t need lifeguards to help me, I was fine. It has just felt like I have had a head cold all week, affected my sinuses a bit, but every day I have felt like I have been getting better and better.’ Deeply-religious Stewart comes from a multi-sport background, a recurring theme among so many of the most successful Team Scotland athletes, and he has a childhood bond with one of the other medallists in these Games — triathlete Marc Austin. ‘My dad did ironman and my mum was a hill runner, so I grew up with sport and church as my two staples,’ he revealed. ‘At five years old, I was in the pool and at seven I did triathlon — I used to race Marc, actually. ‘We traded wins regularly, so when he got third the other day, I wanted to get one up on him! ‘My faith is massive to me, it’s what keeps me level and gives me some perspective. ‘It’s a privilege to race but there are more important things, it’s about being a good person and realising how lucky you are.’ Evans, who also won bronze in the points race on Saturday, said of her silver: ‘I have mixed emotions. ‘When I look back on it, I’ll be delighted I came away with medals and good results. ‘But I’ll definitely be looking back and thinking: “Why didn’t I do this? Why didn’t I do that?”. ‘It’s the nature of cycling, though.’ Skinner, who had been withdrawn from the sprint after taking ill, was pleased just to be back on track and said: ‘It wasn’t too far off my PB and the competitiveness of the field was immense.’