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“I’m essentially obsessed with greatness in this game,” Katie Archibald They say. To many athletes this will seem insufficiently self-indulgent, if fairly standard athlete-speak. From Archibald – a soft-spoken, philosophically inclined Scot – it makes perfect sense. It also comes with a sarcastic smile when she decides on a call. Independent And other outlets, that she’ll actually say what she means. “I know you’re print media, so you know where you’re supposed to say a sentence and you can see it written, but here we go…”
Everyone except Archibald himself would probably already say that he had achieved greatness. To date the track cycling star has two Olympic golds, six world titles and a record 20 European titles, having also won 12 national titles in the last 11 years. Talking to him you realize that this is not enough, that further history, further records are just around the corner.
The 31-year-old’s great successes have also been accompanied by extraordinary downfalls. In 2022 she lost her partner, fellow cyclist Rab Ward, to cardiac arrest, and had to endure the tragic experience of being unable to revive him as he lay beside him.
After returning from the game, he then suffered a terrible injury that kept him out of Paris. olympicsWhen he broke two bones in his foot and tore ligaments from the bone in a fall last summer. For an athlete whose entire sense of the passage of time is tied to the four-year Olympic cycle, this was an utterly crushing blow.
Four months later, this time last year, she bounced back and won gold in the team pursuit world ChampionshipsThe GB quartet are defending their title from 2023. They were so far ahead of the rest of the field that they caught their opponents in the final.
Rather than feeling on top of the world on such a triumphant return from injury, Archibald says she “felt in a bit of freefall” after the physical trauma of missing Paris.
Contrary to expectations, it was actually easier to prepare for last year’s World Championships – despite the extremely abbreviated timeframe provided by its forced layoff – than this year’s, with the World Championships taking place in Santiago, Chile next week. “Injury can provide quite an intense focus, and I also got injured because of very good form and preparation that had otherwise gone well…” she says, before putting it delicately: “No more ankles.
“It’s kind of the aftereffects of that that have been quite difficult. Your life runs in seasons, and this four-year season between Olympic Games has been a strange one.
“But what’s very convenient about us talking today is that I feel very settled now, very motivated, and like I’ve really got something, I don’t think it’s going to come out in this world, it sounds like a slightly perverted thing to say, but the sense of structure that I’ve found – working with my brother, I live in Glasgow these days – and I have this imaginary future that if things keep going the way they’re going, my Career is finally fine. I’ve got this vision of a nice future on the horizon, which in a way starts from this world in Santiago.
Archibald speaks in sentences that require at least four commas as she goes off on tangents, circles around, and finally brings herself back to the original question. She’s refreshingly outspoken, unafraid to express herself, willing to break down the mechanics and ruthless, single-minded determination required to succeed at this level.
To this end, she has shifted her base away from the National Cycling Center and is once again coached by brother John, a former Commonwealth Games silver medallist. “He’s brilliant in both roles – maybe a little bit of an edge on the coaching front,” she says, laughing.
Due to her injury the pair had started working out together before the Paris Olympics, but after her recovery, she says: “I kept trying new things and I knew my brother was there, and in my experience we were fantastic together. So this year I felt really bad, I’m just going to see if John will coach me again.” She jokes, “I’m paying her less than before Paris. Her services haven’t changed at all, but I guess my situation has changed – but she still said yes! I’m enjoying it a lot.”
This time Archibald will only compete in elimination races and Madison will compete with current European silver medalist Maddy Leach. This is the first time since 2017 that Archibald is not on the Team Pursuit team. To say the Scot is passionate about growing the team as a discipline is an understatement, but missing out is a deliberate move as we head towards the Olympics in 2028.
“I would say I’m essentially obsessed with greatness in this specific sport,” she says. “His pinnacle is the Olympic Games. So if I’m interested in becoming the best track cyclist I can be, he’s going to L.A. The two are interconnected. So it’s never too early.” [to think about LA]“But it is too early to plan a set path for that.”
Instead, she has planned her life until next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and the long-term path forward – including joining the team pursuit squad – involves a “change of lifestyle” this year, hence a return to Scotland. “That experience will tell how I can best get to L.A. If the answer is ‘Well, you won’t go’ among the infinite options available, this is one of them…”
It seems impossible now, but after the disappointment of Paris it feels like Archibald is hedging his bets, all too aware that things could go wrong once again. Running a different schedule in training for Chile has also been an adjustment, but it’s all in pursuit of a bigger goal. “I find it a little tricky because I use team scouting as a feedback mechanism because you’re very familiar with your sensitivities in that event. It’s a little hard to prepare just for the group. [events] To know where you are. But I’m happy, so that seems enough.”
She credits a theory that while sport works according to a four-year Olympiad, her cycling career has been working in seven-year cycles, from joining the Great Britain cycling team in late 2013 to the delayed Olympics in 2021, to the LA Games seven years later. ,[Being] The kind of person who wants to pursue growth or pursue a reward should be on this kind of treadmill – I thought it was special for the Olympics. The older I get, [that] Has spread to other targets. I like to have LA as a target on the horizon.
At this point she realizes that she has strayed somewhat from the original question, whether the season after the Olympic year is a difficult experience, with the next Games on the horizon. She comes right back down to earth: “No, it’s been a tough year. But eventually you start sounding like a broken record.”
She laughs. “2022 was the worst of my life. 2023 was absolutely empty, it’s just empty space, bullshit too. 2024, I had a really great time but I missed the Olympic Games. 2025 hasn’t been great at all, and so it feels like maybe that’s the problem for me. Like, it’s not bad luck, it’s bad feedback. I think the project is responding better to 2026! But that’s life.”
It certainly gives him credit for a better, fresh chapter – hopefully starting in Santiago next week.