By Hannah Blackwell
Elinor Barker believes she is back on track for Olympic glory next year after becoming a double world champion in Glasgow.
The Welsh cycling star and Great Britain teammate Neah Evans were crowned world madison champions at the UCI Cycling World Championships on Monday night.
It was a second gold medal of the Championships for Barker, who had already become women’s team pursuit champion on Saturday night.
After the disruption of the Covid years that affected her Olympic preparations before the Tokyo Games, Barker feels she is better placed this time to become an Olympic champion in Paris next year.
“We are in a really nice position,” said the Cardiff rider.
“Before Tokyo it was kind of a mess. It was impossible to put a marker down, we were trying to race through Covid.
“We didn’t get to race the Australians, the Americans, the Canadians and it all felt really hard to predict.
“Now we can take this confidence and hopefully put it into something good next year.”
Elinor Barker and Neah Evans took a dramatic women’s Madison win at the UCI Cycling World Championships tonight pic.twitter.com/sisHefzw2g
— PA Sport (@pasport) August 7, 2023
Evans and Barker completed over 120 laps in the madison. A crash in the closing stages resulted in the race having an additional nine laps.
Barker was down to two laps to go when the gun neutralised the race, but the duo went on to win by three points.
“I didn’t know if I had nine laps left in me, but we got to the front and we just went hard,” said Evans.
Great Britain controlled much of the racing, making some big moves to drive on the pace and charge in the sprint laps.
The duo led from early on, stretching out in front on 21 points with France behind with four sprints out of 12 remaining.
A proper bunch formed in the final 20 laps, with the pace slowing before Japan launched an attack, with Barker bringing the heat to gain more points.
The peloton got very active in the last 10 laps, with Great Britain retaining the lead on 26 points with the Australians chasing on 19.
Another one 🥇
Elinor Barker and Neah Evans are women’s Madison World Champions!
In a race of injury and restarts – what a ride 😍
📸SWpix #GlasgowScotland2023 pic.twitter.com/xM7C9kJntr
— Team GB (@TeamGB) August 7, 2023
Riders crashed with three laps to go as Barker put in a massive effort to be steaming out in front, and the race was neutralised with just two laps remaining.
Getting back under way with nine laps after neutralisation, the British pair continued to show their class, securing two points in the final sprint to be crowned the world champions.
Reflecting on the win, Evans said: “It’s a bit surreal. You come into it, and you know you’re in a good place and if we get the luck on the day we can do this.
“So it’s really nice that it came together and we came away world champions.
“Racing the world championships in itself is special, so to do it in front of a home crowd, in the velodrome I learnt to ride on and so many people up in the stands cheering you on, it’s incredible.”
Earlier in the day, rising Welsh star Emma Finucane flew through the women’s sprint qualifiers by breaking the 200m national record in the process, in a time of 10.234.
In the quarter-finals, Finucane will race Japan’s Mina Sato.
🇬🇧 Great Britain are champions in the Women’s Elite Madison 🥇
What a ride from Neah Evans and Elinor Barker 🌈 👏#GlasgowScotland2023 pic.twitter.com/Rv0clzQRyy
— Eurosport (@eurosport) August 7, 2023