Elinor Barker described taking women’s team pursuit gold at the Track Cycling World Cup in Manchester on Friday night as one of the best moments of her career.
Barker and her Great Britain team mates Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell and Dani King twice broke the world record on their way to glory.
But it was crossing the line to a tidal wave of noise from the capacity crowd at Manchester’s velodrome which made the victory particularly special to Barker.
“Being here today with the crowd and the atmosphere, I think that was probably one of the best moments of my career,” she said.
“It is such a new event that the record’s just going to come down all the time so we knew it was going to go we just didn’t know it would be us that took it.”
Barker was of course referring to the recent rule changes which saw the event extended from three to four kilometres and from three to four riders.
The 19-year-old also insisted the world record will be a marker of progress rather than pride as the team strive for future success.
“We know the record isn’t going to stand for long so we see it as more of a personal best,” the Welsh cyclist added.
Barker also revealed that the team order, which saw Laura Trott positioned first, had been rotated vigorously during preparation for the event.
“We’re probably going to bring five riders to each event so it’s nice to be able to chop and change and have everyone in each position,” said Barker.
“We have really played about with it (the order) a lot and we didn’t know who’d be in what position until a few days ago.”
Image courtesy of Nicola via Wikimedia Commons, with thanks.
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