HER star may be in the ascendant, but Katie Archibald has a canny knack for keeping one foot on the ground.

On promotional duty for the forthcoming Milk Race, the 20-year-old team pursuit world champion has been obligingly downing copious amounts of the white stuff in front of the gathered photographers. Halfway through recounting an anecdote, she lets out a sudden, unexpected belch. "I'm so sorry," she says apologetically. "Gosh, I think I've had a little too much milk . . . "

It's a gloriously reassuring moment to anyone who knows Archibald: one that arguably signals the Milngavie rider hasn't let gold medals and rainbow bands go to her head. Five weeks have passed since she stood atop the podium in Cali, Colombia, alongside Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell and Elinor Barker at the 2014 Track World Championships, an experience that Archibald said has whetted her appetite for success.

"It was my first world championships so I was unbelievably nervous," she said. "But when you look around and see Jo [Rowsell] getting two gold medals and Laura [Trott] her silver in the omnium, it is really inspiring. It makes me hungry for more knowing there is the Commie Games to come, [then] another world championships and eventually [the Olympic Games in] Rio."

While Archibald has always been reluctant to speak openly about her Olympic ambitions, the 2016 Games would seem a realistic and tangible goal. "You don't really want to admit to these big wild dreams in case someone laughs in your face," she said. "I wake up in the morning and I want to go to the Olympics. I don't feel 100% sure I'll definitely get there, but I'm going to give it a bloody good shot."

Until last autumn, Archibald was a name virtually unknown outside of Scottish cycling circles. She exploded onto the scene with a third-place finish in the individual pursuit at the 2013 British National Track Championships in September. Less than a month later Archibald was part of the British side, including Trott, Dani King, Rowsell and Barker, that took team pursuit gold at the UEC European Track Championships in Apeldoorn.

She kept that momentum going at the opener to the 2013/14 Track Cycling World Cup in Manchester in early November, winning silver in the scratch race and bronze in the individual pursuit. Team pursuit gold with Rowsell, King and Barker followed in round two in Aguascalientes, Mexico.

Recruited to the British Cycling Olympic Academy Programme in November, Archibald is happily settling into life in Manchester. Her flatmates include Barker, the double junior world champion Dannielle Khan and the rising sprint star Rosie Blount. She and Barker have matching rainbow mugs in the kitchen cupboard and on return from Cali they celebrated with "world champion pancakes" on Shrove Tuesday.

Even so, Archibald admits she quickly craved getting back to the daily grind. "A few days of partying and celebrating wears me down more than training," she laughed.

Her key focus for the 2014 Commonwealth Games remains the individual pursuit in which she holds a personal best of 3:37 - well inside the qualification standard of 3:41.581 - alongside the points and scratch races at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome. "I'm thinking about throwing my hat in for the time trial on the road as well," she said.

Next week Archibald will join her Scottish Cycling team-mates for the Energiewacht Tour in the Netherlands from April 9-13. "I'm kind of reluctant to advertise it because I have a horrible feeling it is going to be very, very hard," she said. "I hope I'm not going to be blown out the back. That is going to be my first crack at doing a big European stage race. I'm pretty scared to be honest, but we'll see how I go."

It's exactly a year ago this coming weekend that Archibald, who has signed to 11-time Paralympic gold medallist Dame Sarah Storey's team Pearl Izumi Sports Tours International for 2014, made her road race debut in the City of Perth Women's Grand Prix. While most rookies would timidly hold back, not so Archibald who positioned herself in one of the strongest breakaways of the day. "That was my first ever road race - senior or junior," she said. "There was some nuts moments in that."

Nuts is something of a trademark for Archibald, a trait she would be the first to admit. "I think it's pretty handy that in the past I've pulled some kamikaze moves," she said. "Now I'm getting the results to go with the dire effort, people are noticing: 'Ah, that's the girl who was doing all these ridiculous things a few months ago and now they are actually working.' I've tried to keep the same racing mentality. It's nice to have people talk in excitement about the way that you race."

n The Milk Race will be staged in Nottingham on May 25

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