It is, it’s safe to say, far from ideal for one of Team GB’s brightest medal hopes to break their ankle just three months out from the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.
But despite Jack Carlin finding himself in the most desperate of situations as he listened to a doctor talk him through his ankle fracture, he refused to contemplate that he wouldn’t be in Paris this summer for the 2024 Olympics.
And he was right to be optimistic, with the 27-year-old from Paisley recovering remarkably quickly to ensure he was one of three Scots named in Team GB’s initial cycling squad heading to Paris next month.
Alongside Carlin, who’s in the track sprint squad, is mountain biker Charlie Aldridge and track endurance rider, Mark Stewart, who has been named as a travelling reserve.
The women’s track endurance squad is yet to be named with Neah Evans expected to be included but Katie Archibald will be absent after breaking her ankle last week.
For Carlin, his selection for what will be his second Olympics having made his debut at Tokyo 2020 was a welcome relief considering the challenges he’s faced over the past couple of months.
“I’ve never actually revealed publicly what happened before now but it was at the Track Nations Cup in Canada in April - I was feeling very positive going into that event and my form was really starting to show. We won silver in team sprint and I also got a medal in the keirin so things were going really well,” he recalls.
“It was the individual sprint on the Sunday and I woke up feeling really good but when I started warming up, I had a bike malfunction, snapped a crank and hurt my ankle.
“At the point it happened, I did think “uh-oh this isn’t good” but I thought I’d just rolled my ankle. I went to hospital and had an x-ray and when the doctor said I’d fractured it, I didn’t know what to make of the news. I looked over at my physio who was with me and was like what does this mean because it was only three months until the Olympics?! But she reassured me it was ok.
“Things went well though - within a week and a half I was back in the gym and within two weeks, I was back on the bike.
“I didn’t really have time to even think about it – straight away I had a rehab plan and I just got stuck into that.”
With Carlin back on his bike within weeks of the fracture, he managed to escape with surprisingly little damage to his fitness levels and now, five weeks from the start of Paris 2024, he’s confident he’s in a good position fitness-wise.
The Scot will contest three events in Paris – the team sprint, individual sprint and keirin – and having gone from the rookie of the sprint squad in Tokyo three years ago, he’s now the rider who his teammates will be looking towards for guidance in Paris.
And while Carlin does admit that being a few years older than on his Olympic debut means his body is that little bit stiffer and sorer, he’s feeling comfortable with being the old hand of the sprint squad, which also includes Ed Lowe, Hamish Turnbull and Joe Truman as the travelling reserve.
“Bring three years older means that physically, I’m probably carrying a few more injuries and niggles than I was in Tokyo and mentally, it’s been a tough three years but I think that’s made me more resilient.
“But the up side of being three years older is that I have more experience this time around and having been to an Olympics already, I know what to expect and the pressures that are involved,” he says.
“Being the rider with the experience brings a different element to it for me - last time, I could rely on the others to keep me calm and collected whereas I’m that person now but I’m excited for that.”
Carlin already has a bulging trophy cabinet.
16 medals from the Olympics, World Championships, European Championships and Commonwealth Games is, by anyone’s standards, an impressive haul. But there’s one glaring omission in Carlin’s collection and that’s a gold medal.
To date, all his major championship medals are silvers or bronzes and while that’s nothing to be sniffed at, he admits he would love to win his first gold this summer.
“My target going into Paris is the same as every time I race and that’s to win medals and hopefully that’ll be gold,” he says.
“I can only give my best – I can’t do anything about what anyone else does, but I’m confident and focused going into Paris and hopefully I can contend for medals.”
