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Great Britain will be among the contenders for gold in the women’s team pursuit at the Paris Olympics, but it will be hard not to think about the rider who is not there.
Plans for these Games were flipped upside down six weeks ago when two-time Olympic champion and five-time world champion Katie Archibald broke two bones in her leg and tore ligaments off the bone in a freak accident when she tripped on a step in her garden in late June.
Elinor Barker, gearing up for her third Games after helping Britain to team pursuit gold in Rio and silver in Tokyo, said the rest of the team are still “a little bit in shock about it”.
“Everybody is thinking of Katie,” Barker said. “Everybody who knows Katie just wants her to be happy. I think she deserves that and more.
“It’s not been so much about the racing. It’s been about, ‘What does she need?’”
Archibald’s housemate Josie Knight felt that as keenly as anyone.
“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,” the 27-year-old said.
“It was a strange balance of needing to refocus and be like, ‘Right, Katie’s out, let’s move on’, while also being a supportive housemate and friend, and being there for her.
“It took a bit of time to refocus and realise that we still have this big opportunity and we have to make the most of it.”
Archibald was due to be the lead rider in GB’s women’s endurance squad, inheriting that mantle from the retired Dame Laura Kenny and targeting the team pursuit, Madison and omnium.
The Scot’s absence punches a big hole in GB’s plans, but is by no means the end of their ambitions.
At last year’s world championships in Glasgow, Archibald raced but was a long way from her best as she dealt with emotional trauma following the death of her partner Rab Wardell.
Even as she played a reduced role, Britain took team pursuit gold – their first world title in the event since 2014.
Knight was the one to step up and do the long turns on the front, and is expected to do so again.
“Pressure is a privilege, isn’t it?” Knight said. “I’m excited to be in this position where I can lead this team and hopefully we can still do something great.”
Olympic debutants Jess Roberts and Anna Morris are due to join Barker and Knight in the team pursuit, while Neah Evans will race the omnium and partner Barker in the Madison – the pair will go into the race as the reigning world champions.
The question is whether Britain can still win pursuit gold without their star rider.
“That’s a hard one to answer, isn’t it?” Knight said. “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’.
“But I’ve been keeping the faith, and what we did (in training last week) was really promising. There’s definitely a part of me that thinks, ‘You know what, we can still do this’.
“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.”
