IT’S GOOD BUT IT’S NOT QUITE CARLIN
Jack ready to drown his silver sorrows with a pint
Jack Carlin fought to find the glass half- full in his silver medal. All he knew was an hour later his next glass would be empty – the one with a pint in it.
You can take the boy out of Paisley but you’ll never take Paisley out of the boy.
The 20-year-old, who stunned cycling last month with two silvers in the World Championships in Holland, boosted his rapidly growing reputation with a superb showing in the men’s sprint Down Under.
On another outstanding night for Scotland in the velodrome, Katie Archibald and Neah Evans took silver and bronze behind Wales’ Elinor Barker in the women’s 25km points race to follow Neil Fachie’s second gold of the Games in the para-sprint.
Carlin missed out on joining him on top of the podium by the width of a tyre in the second leg of a 2- 0 final defeat to defending champion Sam Webster – the kind of distance that probably hurts more than a mile.
But he admitted it wouldn’t be long before he takes the positives out of a week that saw him finish agonisingly short in the Keirin as well with a fourth.
He said: “A hundred per cent I’ll see it as a positive soon enough. What I need to do right now is get a shower, have a pint then you can ask me again how I feel.
“It has been a long time since I had one – well, at least two weeks! But you come to win, don’t you? After the world champs I came in full of confidence.
“And I managed to come and get what I wanted – which was a podium finish, whether it was the Keirin or sprint.
“Finishing fourth in the Keirin was really hard – it was one of my biggest hits to come so close yet be so far from a medal. But I slept on it, woke up with a positive attitude and went into the day really well.
“I got a personal best and held the Games record – which was nice – for about two minutes before it was smashed!”
Kiwi Webster proved too strong and too smart for Carlin, who was buoyed by the shock early exit of his conqueror for gold at Worlds, Aussie Matt Glaetzer.
Carlin said: “Sam’s an unbelievable rider, very crafty on the track. He knows how to use it to his advantage.
“The first one he caught me napping. The heats had got to me a bit and I was a bit tired. But I got a couple of caffeine gels down me and tried to wake myself up for the second one.
“On the day he was just better though. I qualified second fastest and you start to think, ‘ Well, if the fastest is out…’ But when it gets to the level we’re at here in track cycl ing it doesn’t matter where you qualify – it comes down to hundredths of a second.
“The times were frightening here today – five people broke the record. No one’s hanging about. It can be a tyre’s width on the line.
“But then as you’ve seen there are other guys who grab the reins and produce the goods.
“If you don’t, you can take it one way or another – positive or negative. You can think, ‘Oh, I’m not good enough’ or you can say, ‘I want to get better’.
“There are a lot of positives to be taken this week, a lot of experiences gained. Now I’m just looking forward to a well-deserved break.”
Archibald’s attitude to her defeat was similar although she reckons her and Evans’ efforts to support each other in the gruelling 100- lap race ended up working against them despite medalling.
Barker, a GB team- mate, stunned the field by catching up a full lap on a break, earning a 20-point bonus before halfway that made her unassailable.
And Archibald said: “When she goes you chase it at first, which is what I did.
“But if you do that, there’s no plan B. You either chase it when it goes or you let it go and think, ‘I’ll get my own lap’.
“She has been junior world time trial champion so once she’s away, she’s away. But it was that initial kick and the gap grows so quickly, you’re really on the back foot.
“I won four of the sprints but I’d lost it before that point. I had to be scoring in every sprint but we faffed, me and Neah, in trying not to hurt each other – we actually hindered each other.
“I really messed up the first half of the race and by then the damage was done. I’d done so much chasing that it took the edge off the sprints.”
The more Archibald talked, the more despondent she seemed – despite her second medal in 24 hours.
She said: “Yes, it does feel good – but I was miles away from the gold.
“You know what it is, I’ve done four interviews and I’ve gone from being very happy to analysing what went wrong.
“It’s annoying because you know all the strengths of the other riders – all of Elinor’s – and you focus on countering.
“But what I should have done was focus on my own strengths.
“I am delighted though – especially that it’s both of us on the podium.
“It was incredible arrogance going into it saying we wanted to get gold and silver because that’s how we are.
“We’re two of the fastest riders in there but we weren’t as fast as Eli.
“It’s cool we’re both on the podium though.” While Carlin had his eyes on a pint of the amber nectar, Archibald revealed her own vice for winning gold was a bit more conservative.
The 24-year-old said: “We had freshlymade scones last night.
“We’re not in the Village so we have an oven and, without being snobs, we have a chef with us so he made the scones, we didn’t!
“They were date scones – very tasty.”
Wales’ Barker claimed her first Commonwealth title with victory over the Scots pair.
Barker, an Olympic team pursuit champion in Rio, had chosen not to contest the pursuit races Down Under and her fresher legs showed.
The 23-year-old revealed it had always been the plan for her to skip the pursuits – to the extent she did not even bring the required bike to Brisbane – but said that alone was not the key to victory. Barker, a former world champion in the points race, said: “It feels amazing, it’s a really good feeling.
“It’s more the fresh legs within the race. I didn’t contest any of the first four sprints because I wanted to take a lap.
“I ’ ve been studying races and watching for signs of when people are struggling a little bit. There were four or five people I was watching and when I saw those signs I was going to go.”
It has been a long time since I had a pint – well, at least two weeks. You come to win