News: Elinor Barker has sights on Tokyo 2020 Olympics

World and Olympic champion Elinor Barker has more medals in her sights as she sets out her targets for Tokyo 2020

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News: Elinor Barker has sights on Tokyo 2020 Olympics

By Phil Jones, Sportsbeat

World and Olympic champion Elinor Barker has more medals in her sights as she sets out her targets for Tokyo 2020. The 22-year-old from Cardiff set a new world record in winning team pursuit Olympic Gold alongside Laura Kenny, Joanna Rowsell Shand and Katie Archibald last year.

Elinor in a long solo effort off the front in the British Road Race Championships on the Isle of Man

But with Laura Kenny taking a break from the track to have a baby, and Rowsell Shand retiring, it gave the quartet’s two youngest members licence to expand their cycling repertoire. Archibald did so by winning the world omnium title – an event normally the preserve of Kenny – while Barker took her own maiden individual rainbow jersey in the points race.

The pair look likely to reunite in the team pursuit squad in three years time for the next Olympic Games, but Barker now also has other targets. “My ambition for three years time is that I’ll be back in the team pursuit, on the track, trying to get into that team for Tokyo, with also maybe a shot at one of the bunch races,” revealed Barker.

“But obviously it is a long way off and we have a lot of very talented female bike riders at the minute – so it’s going to be much more difficult this time around to make the team, I think.”

Barker illustrated her prowess in bunch racing by winning the Six Day Amsterdam event last December, before going on to claim the overall Series title in Mallorca, in March. The following month she won also won two silver medals at the World Championships, in the scratch race and Madison, to prove herself among the globe’s elite female riders.

But with current world champion Archibald and reigning Olympic champion Kenny likely to be in contention for Team GB’s sole omnium spot – that leaves the Madison as the only other bunch event left on the Olympic track cycling schedule. And having already won a World Championship silver in the event at the first time of asking, it would not be a surprise to see Barker on the Madison start-line in three years time, with a golden glint in her eye.

“I’ve ridden three Madisons in the last year, the first of which was Nationals with Laura [Kenny] and went well, we won it,” she concluded. “The second was the Los Angeles World Cup with Ellie Dickinson, and while we had a really good race we were slightly new to being in a field with so many technically good riders.

“We found it quite difficult but learned a huge amount from that and I went on to win the World Championships silver medal with Emily Nelson, a couple of months later. That was really great, we were really happy with that, especially to finish behind the Belgians as they’re a nation that is brought up with the Madison and they’ve trained it for years and years. So to be able to ride with them, and challenge them at times, was really good.”

Six Day London meanwhile can now boast not one, but two British individual World Champions after Barker signed up to race again in 2017. The world points race champion will ride the women’s omnium – which now sees riders earn vital UCI points – at Six Day London, as well as competing in the exhibition Madison with Archibald also taking part.

“London was really, really enjoyable. I enjoyed it almost as a fan, just being able to see how many people enjoy coming to see cycling every night, for six nights,” she said. “For me it didn’t go so well because it was one of my first races back after the Olympics. I’d had a long break, I’d only been back in training for just over a week or so, and I was really feeling it, so it wasn’t my finest performance.

Six Day London takes place between 24-29 October 2017 at Lee Valley VeloPark on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Half term fun, with or without the kids. Tickets on sale now at www.ticketmaster.co.uk/sixdaylondon

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