Elinor Barker Aims For Track And Road Double At Cycling World Championships

BORRIANA, SPAIN - FEBRUARY 17: Elinor Barker of The United Kingdom and Uno-X Pro Cycling Team prior to the 7th Setmana Ciclista - Volta Comunitat Valenciana Femines 2023, Stage 2 a 116km stage from Borriana to Vila-Real / #SetmanaCiclista23 / on February 17, 2023 in Borriana, Spain. (Photo by Alex Broadway/Getty Images)

Elinor Barker Aims For Track And Road Double At Cycling World Championships

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By Gareth James

Elinor Barker is hoping to get two for the price of one when Scotland hosts the first ever combined cycling world championships in August.

An Olympic and five-time world champion on the track, Barker has been focusing more on the road this season and said the opportunity to compete in both disciplines on home turf this summer would be unique.

“Racing a home worlds doesn’t come around very often,” says the Welsh rider, who won gold for Team Wales at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

“So to be able to race effectively two home worlds – with the track and the road – would be phenomenal.”

Given her growing ambitions across two disciplines, Barker has put her name forward for several different events across the road and track at the Championships, and must now await the selection process.

Racing everything she has entered is out of the question. This experimental new format for a world championships, due to be used every four years before an Olympics, involves plenty of schedule clashes and riders who favour more than one discipline must compromise.

“I’ve put myself up for more races than is physically possible,” says Barker.

“I guess the best-case scenario is to have to choose because there are clashes between some of the road and track events.

“I’ve put myself up for six races and if I get one or two, that will be fantastic and I’ll go all out for those. Just to be able to race would be a fantastic experience.”

Barker – who started her cycling career with the renowned Maindy Flyers in Cardiff – long planned to shift her focus more to the road after the Tokyo Olympics, signing a long-term contract with the Uno-X team, although the process was put back after she became pregnant.

The 28-year-old welcomed son Nico last March.
So much has changed for Barker since then that she had no idea what to expect of herself this season, but she has relished the challenge.

“It’s going really well. There’s still a lot to learn and a lot of experience to gain. What I’ve been enjoying is the number of race days and also the variety.

“If one race doesn’t go to plan or I’m not as good on a cobbled section or a gravel section or whatever, that’s fine.

“There’s either a similar race in a few weeks’ time or a totally different race in a few weeks’ time and both are equally motivating, either a chance to rectify it or a chance to do something totally different.”

On Wednesday, Barker finished third in the British time trial championships as Lizzie Holden took the title ahead of Anna Morris.

It was an encouraging enough result for Barker, who was an impressive seventh at Gent-Wevelgem in March and made it to the finale of La Fleche Wallonne with the lead group in April before taking 16th.

The Giro Donne is next on the agenda, assuming the Italian race goes ahead amid problems for the organisers, and Barker is hoping to earn selection for the Tour de France Femmes which takes place at the end of July.
She has not been ignoring the track – in February she collected Madison and team pursuit gold at the European Championships – but Barker said she feels more like a road rider these days.

“My loyalties lie with Uno-X in a situation where there is a conflict of programmes, and the track team know I’m working around it,” she says.

“In that sense I’m more of a road rider and track fits around that. I’m enjoying this approach to it and I can take the experience I get from the road and put it into the track.

“I think it makes me a better track rider than I would have been had I just continued with what I was doing with full focus on the track.”

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