Katie Archibald: “This Feels Exactly Where I Should Be”
The date is 4th December 2021. Katie Archibald has just been crowned the Women’s Endurance League champion at the first UCI Track Champions League.
The result and the trophy caps off an incredible year for the flying Scotswoman which also saw her win a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Not to mention further golds at the World and European Championships.
But before all the success and the medals came the feeling of riding a bike around a velodrome track. A feeling that Archibald has not forgotten as her career has progressed and one that has spurred her on ever since.
Casting her mind back to her first memories of being on a track, Archibald says: “I tried riding for the first time at Caird Park in Dundee. But it was after I tried Meadowbank Velodrome that I went home, and I had the sensation of being on a ferry.
“You know when you spend the night on a ferry and you go back on land, and you still feel yourself rocking from side to side?
“I remember lying in bed that night and still feeling like I was going round and round. And thinking that was how it would always be.”
Finding An Identity
Archibald had always been interested in sports. She and her older brother John had both been into swimming when they were younger.
But it was not until Archibald tried cycling that she felt she had found something special to her.
She says: “It was a funny lifestyle because I was just copying what my brother did. But cycling was my thing.
“I think in particular because it was my passion. Because it was a way for me to find an identity and something that I was striving for. Something that I could look at and think I want to be like that.
“I think deep down it was always sport. Whether it had to be cycling, it now feels like an unavoidable destiny.
“You know, like this feels exactly where I should be. This feels like what I should be doing.”
Determination To Succeed
The idea of a destiny presumes the idea that Archibald was always meant to end up where she is now. That there was an inevitability about everything.
But although it may be said with the benefit of hindsight, Archibald’s success was not without the hard work.
Given her determination to succeed, it is no coincidence that she has reached the top level.
“The way I describe it quite often is the difference between the kids at 12 years old who want to be world champion and go to the Olympics, versus the path that I took which is where you want to be the best in your club.
“And then maybe you think maybe I can be the best in my region. And then you’re like well I’ll try and be the best in Scotland. Maybe the best in Britain. The best in Europe. And you keep going through these levels until you find yourself at an Olympic stage.”
Scotland has consistently produced elite-level cyclists, which meant Archibald only needed to look across the track and those that came before her for inspiration.
“The biggest inspirations I took, I think at a key point in my career were the best in Scotland, because that was undeniably a very high level. But it was still attainable.
“So it was the people like Kayleigh Brogan, Charline Joiner (Charline Jones).
“I mean, these are the best riders in Scotland on the track at the time and I thought they were the higher limit.”
Archibald Excelling In 2021
Fast forward to today and Archibald is not only the best in Scotland. She is now the one responsible for setting that higher limit.
After winning three gold medals at last year’s European Track Cycling Championships, Archibald has now won 17 golds since 2013. A record for the event.
Last year she added to the gold medal she won in 2016 in Rio for Great Britain. She won gold in the madison at the delayed Tokyo Olympics, as well as a silver medal in the team pursuit.
And to end the year on a high, Archibald won the Women’s Endurance League at the UCI Track Champions League in front of a sold-out crowd in London at Lee Valley VeloPark.
Archibald has always found a way to perform on the biggest stages. And she is universally recognised as one of the best in her sport.
When asked what she does to get ready for these big events, she attributes this to an almost higher power that comes out during the race.
“It’s always something that I felt kind of out of my control. I was going to say when I was younger but really until this year, it was the kind of thing that I treated almost like religion I suppose.
“It was a higher force that would say, on certain race days, “You can do something special today”. And I still don’t know where it comes from. But there is some kind of transformation for the big occasion.”
Archibald On The Future
This transformation seemed to occur on several occasions last year and meant that Archibald had arguably the best year of her career so far.
She pins a lot of that success down to the initial success at the Olympics last year, something which she hopes to carry forward for future events.
“It was the work that went into that Olympic madison that has just put wings on my back for everything that has followed.
“And now I’m hoping that I can go back to the drawing board and do things that can maintain me through the next three years, without expecting to be right at the very top for the whole time.”
