The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Five golds for GB at Track World Cup
Injury to Archibald only cloud as young stars shine in Glasgow
Great Britain showed the future is bright with five gold medals at the Track World Cup in Glasgow.
The only sign of trouble came when Katie Archibald and Manon Lloyd crashed before responding to win women’s Madison gold on Saturday – despite a fractured wrist for Archibald and concussion for Lloyd.
And, after the team pursuit squads’ triumphs on Friday’s opening day – including Dundee’s Mark Stewart – Emily Kay won the new-look omnium yesterday, when the men’s team sprint squad of Jack Carlin, Ryan Owens and Joe Truman were also victorious at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.
It saw Britain top the medal table at the opening Track World Cup of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic cycle, with the rest of the world looking on once more.
Archibald was the only active member of Britain’s Olympic squad competing in Glasgow.
The 22-year-old from Milngavie, won Olympic team pursuit gold in August with Joanna Rowsell-Shand, Elinor Barker and Laura Trott (now Kenny after her marriage to six-time Olympic champion Jason Kenny in September).
That success was despite an injuryinterrupted build-up which saw Archibald miss March’s Track World Championships in London with knee and elbow injuries sustained in a motorbike accident.
Now she will see a specialist in Manchester today and faces another spell of rehabilitation. This time she was able to laugh it off.
“I thought ‘I’m not going to go to A&E on a Saturday night, Bonfire Night, it’s going to be hell’,” she said.
“I couldn’t sleep. I waited until what I thought was definitely the next day and not the previous day and went off to A&E.”
Archibald was able to greet fans before the final session. “Most people have been really glad that it’s not my autograph hand that’s hurt but it was just a lot of ‘get well soons’,” she added.
Of more serious concerns for Archibald and her established teammates is the battle for their places, now there is upward pressure from a promising crop of talented riders.
Kay, the most senior member of the team pursuit squad which won on Friday, won her second gold of the threeday event with a mature and composed ride in the new-look omnium.
Laura Kenny won a second Olympic title in the event in Rio, when it featured three timed and three bunch disciplines over two days, while Archibald won the European title in the revised format, of four bunch races in one day, last month.
Kay was fourth in the opening scratch race, second in the tempo race and second in the elimination race to sit second entering the concluding points race.
The 21-year-old from Bromsgrove was six points behind Japan’s Yumi Kajihara, but overcame that margin and then held off the challenge from behind as Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky finished one point adrift.
“For the first World Cup in the cycle, to win gold is better than I could have imagined,” Kay said.
Britain have won the last three Olympics in the three-rider, three-lap men’s team sprint but no world title since 2005. That might soon change as Carlin, Owens and Truman showed there is strength in depth behind Rio gold medallists Phil Hindes, Jason Kenny and Callum Skinner.
The trio won in 43.479, with France second, and now compete at next week’s Track World Cup in Apeldoorn, Holland.
Owens, an unused Rio Olympics reserve, said: “We were third in qualifying but we just got better and better as the day went on. We just went out there and enjoyed the environment with the home crowd and it came out the best way possible.”
I thought ‘I’m not going to go to A&E on a Saturday night, Bonfire Night, it’s going to be hell’. KATIE ARCHIBALD