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The mood has shifted from heartbreak to hope within Team GB’s women’s endurance track squad, as they prepare to launch their Olympics bid without two-time gold medallist Katie Archibald.
The Scot, who had hoped to target three gold medals in Paris, was forced to withdraw from the Games just a month before they began, after she broke her leg in a freak garden accident.
Now, attention has turned to the squad’s other members, such as Tokyo silver medallists Josie Knight, Elinor Barker and Neah Evans, who are ready to step into the spotlight.
Speaking publicly for the first time about Archibald’s withdrawal, Knight said: “It was hugely, hugely disappointing. Particularly for me, because I live with Katie. We’ve been working together towards this goal for months and months. It really felt like the whole thing had gone down the drain a little bit because we’d come up with our strategy, we had our plan, and then suddenly she wasn’t there. It was like, ‘Well gosh.’
“For a while it really felt like, obviously along with Katie’s, it really felt like my whole Olympic dream had been a little bit crushed. It took us a couple of weeks to get over the heartbreak, and the heartbreak that I felt for Katie, as well, and refocus and come up with a new strategy, and a new team. They had to redo the selection. It was just a stressful couple of weeks.”
Archibald was replaced in the squad by Olympic debutant Jess Roberts, who will race alongside Knight in a team pursuit quartet that also counts Barker and Anna Morris.
“When we had Katie in the team, gold was very much my goal and ambition. When she broke her ankle, I fully thought, ‘Well that’s it done. There’s no way we can do this without her’,” Knight said. Since then, however, the 27-year-old has been “keeping the faith”.
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“We lost one of the mainstays of our team, and I think I felt like it was on me to kind of pick up the pieces and make sure we were all still focusing on this one goal. Everyone kept saying to me, ‘Ah, you’ve got to step up now and do more.’ I was sort of like, ‘I already planned on doing as much as I could. Let’s not pile the pressure on too much.’ But pressure is a privilege, isn’t it? I’m excited to be in this position where I can lead this team and hopefully we can still do something great.”
At last year’s World Championships in Glasgow, Knight was the driving force in the squad’s team pursuit victory, sealing the final with a mammoth four-and-a-half-lap turn on the front.
Speaking earlier this year, Archibald said her housemate is “one of the leaders” in the team, adding that she is “much more than just a rider”. Five-time Olympic champion Laura Kenny described Knight as “the smoothest, best team player I’ve had the privilege of riding with in a pursuit“.
Elinor Barker will compete in her third Olympics in Paris.
(Image credit: Ed Sykes/SWpix)
Team GB’s track squad arrived in Paris last Thursday, fresh from a week-long holding camp in South Wales. World champions Barker and Neah Evans will ride the Madison this week, with Evans also taking on GB’s Omnium spot in Archibald’s absence.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” said Barker of the Madison. “We’ll go into an Olympics as world champions which is a huge life event really. To get that opportunity is really special and we’ll have confidence from last year’s worlds that we’re a really solid pairing and we can compete against the best.”
Barker rode alongside Archibald in the team pursuit squad that won gold in Rio in 2016. Speaking about her teammate’s injury, the 29-year-old said: “All of us are still in a little bit of shock about it. It’s very unfortunate to have something like that happen.
“I’ve just seen her the once and we’ve been chatting a little bit but she seems to be dealing with it pretty well. She’s an incredible character and so I’m really proud of her for that. I think the next couple of weeks we will be tough. Obviously we’ll be very busy but we’ll be thinking of her all the time.”
Now, Knight explained, the squad’s ambition is to show the world that it’s “not just the Katie Archibald show”.
“I feel pretty sure that most of the nations will be ruling us out a little bit, and they will be going, ‘Well, Team GB have lost Katie, so we don’t need to worry so much about them.’ And I think the joke’s on them, hopefully,” Knight said.
“We’re going to come out and show them that it’s not just the Katie Archibald show, and we’re actually a nation of fantastic team pursuiters. I just really hope that we can execute the best ride that we’re capable of, and I think that should put us in that medal position, if not fighting for the gold.”
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