The confirmation, if it were needed, came on Saturday; Katie Archibald is hard as nails. The 22 year-old was involved in a heavy crash during the madison race on day two of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Glasgow and initially, it looked serious enough to force the Scot to withdraw from the event. However, the newly-crowned Olympic champion peeled herself off of the floor, jumped back on her bike and duly completed the remaining 62 laps of the race to claim a dramatic last-gasp victory alongside her English teammate, Manon Lloyd.
However, it was confirmed by Archibald on Sunday morning following a visit to Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary that she had fractured her wrist. “I knew I'd hurt it as soon as I went down but it wasn’t until I got the X-ray that I realised it was fractured,” she said. “When I got up, I went to shake it and it really wasn't a shaking job. It was pretty sore, but it's not the end of the world, is it?”
Following Archibald’s victory as part of the women’s team pursuit at the Rio Olympics, she had decided to take some time away from her favoured event to try out some other events like the madison and the omnium. However, this injury has now put a spanner in the works. The fracture will result in some enforced time off of the bike, a scenario that Archibald is no stranger to. Almost a year ago, she suffered knee ligament damage after a motorbike crash and, while there is never an ideal time to be out injured, a few months after the Olympic Games is infinitely preferable to a few months before it. “I wouldn't want this to have happened, but if I look at the positives, I guess I'd seen my next few months mainly as a load of racing experience,” she said “But I've had a really successful last month. If I can feel comfortable with having that under my belt and just get training instead, if anything, in terms of training phases, it will maybe work out better.”
The injury is a blow to Archibald personally but it is also a blow to Scottish Cycling. The Olympic champion was due to be racing in the Scottish Track Championships this weekend but has now been forced to withdraw meaning that the madison partnership she had been planning to develop with Renfrewshire’s Neah Evans is on hold. It is, admits Archibald, a disappointment that she will be on the sidelines this weekend instead of in the mix.
The Milngavie rider’s partnership with Evans does not have any specific targets but Archibald admits that the madison at the World Championships in Hong Kong in April is an exciting prospect. “Neah isn’t on the GB programme at the moment and it’s not my place to put people on or off the programme but I see her as one of the best UK riders just now and I can imagine her coming into the fold,” she said. “We’ve been racing a lot together and training in the Scottish Cycling sessions so maybe that could move into British sessions.”
The signs are looking good for Scotland to have an extremely strong cycling team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, which are now less than 17 months away. With Eileen Roe having become one of Britain’s best road racers, Team Scotland’s cyclists look like they will be in a strong position to challenge for multiple medals in the Gold Coast. “The Commonwealth Games is really close now so it’s looking good,” Archibald. “Next year, I’m going to be racing with Eileen on the road (with Team WNT) so that’ll be great. To have three big Scottish names going into the Commonwealth Games is really cool.”
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