Neah Evans’ first major individual title may have been some time coming, but it was worth the wait.
The 32-year-old became women’s points race world champion on the final day of the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines in France to claim her first global title in style.
Evans was in no mood to hang around, winning the first sprint and from there, never lost sight of the gold medal.
Her title was GB’s third of the championships to add to those from Ethan Hayter in the men’s omnium and the men’s team pursuit quartet who won gold during the week.
Evans admitted her victory may take some time to sink in, but she was under no illusions as to the scale of her achievement, becoming only the second Scottish woman, alongside Katie Archibald, to win a major global individual title on the track.
“It feels brilliant. It’s not really sunk in yet, full of adrenaline and excitement from the race,” she said of her rainbow jersey-winning ride. “But delighted.”
Despite taking the maximum five points in that opening sprint and showing what was an extremely strong field her intent, the gold medal was far from assured.
The next few sprints saw Evans, defending champion Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky, and USA’s Jennifer Valente tussle between the top three places on the leaderboard.
But a shock lap-take from Denmark’s Julie Leith shook up the race and saw her jump into the lead.
A chasing group of six riders, which included Evans, also managed to take a lap which restored the GB rider’s initial lead but she was not able to hold on to first place for long as Leith took another lap – and another 20 points – with just eight laps to go, retaking the overall lead and putting pressure on the following group.
In a sensational show in the penultimate lap, the chaser group of Evans, Valente, and Kopecky fought back hard and managed to make it across the gap, putting the Scot back into first position with just one lap to go.
Holding nothing back, and unperturbed by the confusion caused by the bell signalling the last lap ringing a lap too early, Evans showed her physical prowess.
On the penultimate corner, she was forced to move round the outside of the pack but she used every ounce of her experience to ease to the front and as soon as she could sense victory, she was never going to let go, sprinting over the line to win with 60 points, ahead of Leith on 53 and Valente on 51 and earn her first world title..
“I felt I had good legs. I had a game plan and I was quite confident but the first lap went and I was chasing a bit and we kind of all got it and I was like ‘right back in control, this is alright’!” she said of the race.
“Then Julie [Leith] went again and I was like ‘oh dear’. I knew I had good legs at that point but it was really difficult because she’d got such a good gap quite early and it was difficult to judge and to get people to work with me rather than just drag them. There was a lot happening!
“They rang the bell and then we had one and I wasn’t sure whether it was because we’d got the lap or what it was so I was like just keep going!
“So it wasn’t quite the magical moment that you sometimes dream of but yeah, it doesn’t matter!”
Evans has had quite a summer having won silver and bronze at the Commonwealth Games in August, as well as silver last week as part of GB’s women’s team pursuit squad alongside Archibald, Josie Knight and Anna Morris.
Her world title is not only the highlight of her season, it is the highlight of a career which began relatively late having been a veterinary surgeon in her early 20s and only dedicating herself to elite cycling in 2017 at the age of 26.
These world championships conclude the season for Evans and her GB team-mates but the Scot’s form in recent months bodes well as the 2024 Olympics in Paris are now only 19 months away with a gold medal well and truly in Evans’ sights.
In the men’s Madison, the British pair of Ethan Hayter and Ollie Wood secured a sensational silver medal after a tight finish, with the Netherlands pipping the duo to gold, while in the men’s elimination final, Ethan Vernon won bronze to ensure GB finished the championship fifth on the medal table with 10 medals.
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