THERE was a moment during the 2014 Commonwealth Games last summer when I joked to Katie Archibald that she probably couldn't remember the last time that she walked through an athlete-press mixed zone and I wasn't standing there thrusting a Dictaphone towards her.

"It's a comfort," she insisted, laughing. For someone still so relatively new to the sport – the 21-year-old from Milngavie had only taken up cycling three years earlier honing her skills on Highland grass tracks – there was arguably a lot of pressure stacked on her shoulders.

She raced in five medal events for Team Scotland and was up there with the best, coming away with a hard fought bronze in the points race at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome exactly a year ago today.

Archibald has gone on to become a double European champion, winning team and individual pursuit gold on a "humpty dumpty" track in Guadeloupe last October.

Already a world gold medallist, she was part of the British quartet alongside Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell Shand and Elinor Barker that took silver in the team pursuit at the 2015 Track Cycling World Championships in Paris in February.

At the rain-lashed finish line of the road race on Glasgow Green last summer – her fifth event of the Games and one in which she placed a credible seventh – Archibald reflected with remarkable maturity on her rapid ascent through the cycling ranks.

"It's like when you get a new job and you're supposed to do the dishes first and then you're making everyone coffee," she said at the time. "I've managed to go straight to the top office where I'm making big decisions."

While some might have been daunted by such elevated status, it merely served to stoke Archibald's fierce ambition. "I seem to have plateaued a little bit in that top five, top 10, in all five events, whereas others have had that one golden moment," she said as the Games drew to a close. "That's something I can focus on – trying to be the best at one thing – I fancy that, I really like winning."

A year on from Glasgow 2014, Archibald no longer feels like such a wet behind the ears rookie in cycling terms. Speaking to promote the ScottishPower Youth Series, she talked frankly on her own journey so far and outlined future aspirations.

In 12 months' time Archibald hopes to be poised on the cusp of an even bigger stage: the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

The tight knit women's track endurance squad that is part of the Manchester-based British Cycling Olympic Podium Programme competed for different nations at the Commonwealth Games: Rowsell Shand and Trott for England, Barker and Ciara Horne for Wales and Archibald, of course, for Scotland.

That rivalry was fleeting. Archibald lays bares the deep forged camaraderie which comes from an unwavering shared objective: defending the Olympic team pursuit title won by Great Britain at London 2012.

"We don't have that same pressure of who is going to come out on top," she muses. "We are still competing for spaces, but we are working towards the same end goal.

"Ahead of Rio the squad isn't going to change that much so we are all in it for the long-haul. That evens things out and makes us all equals so there is not a sense of thinking: 'Oh, I wonder what will happen? Will I make it past next week?' Now we know we are going to make it past next week – it's whether we make it past next summer. It is a field leveller and settles the team."

By making it past next summer, Archibald means life beyond Rio. Before then, however, there will be plenty of milestones to contend with, not least defending her titles at 2015 UEC Track Elite European Championships in Grenchen, Switzerland, this October.

The 2015/16 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Series gets under way in Cali, Colombia, later that same month, with rounds to follow in New Zealand and Hong Kong, while London will host the 2016 Track Cycling World Championships next March.

"We will have similar season with the World Cups and World Championships, but it will be different with a summer peak next year," she says. "We are practising a mini-peak in training – we will have a mini-Olympics this week. The big difference will be how we manage that gap between the World Championships in March and the Olympics in August."

The reigning British national individual pursuit champion, Archibald claimed silver in that same event at the UEC Under-23 and Junior European Track Championships in Athens this month. She clocked a new personal best of 3:30.103 during qualification, but was pipped for gold by Denmark's Amalie Dideriksen in the final.

"If you had said going out there it would be a silver then I guess I would have been pretty happy," says Archibald. "I'm quite annoyed that I didn't back-up my ride. I qualified fastest and if I had repeated my qualifying time it would have been a gold medal. It was close.

"I got a PB and I'm happy enough that I did my best. Obviously the gold and the jersey would have been nice. I'm still senior European individual pursuit champion, so it is a bit annoying not to get what is technically a lesser jersey."

In the past, Olympic champions Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton have credited a positive head space to following the Chimp Paradox mind management model devised by psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters who worked with British Cycling for nine years.

Archibald – who admits to once speed-reading Peters' book on a car journey to race in Manchester – is working with sports psychologist Ruth Anderson, who joined British Cycling in May after previously holding a similar role with the Australian Olympic team at Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

"I have a lot of trust in her," says Archibald. "It is hard to measure the rewards as she has only been with us a few months but I'm getting along well with her. It is one of those things where you think: 'I have got by fine until this point without psychological help, what difference is it going to make?' It is tricky to know long-term what difference it will make but I'm definitely enjoying that support."