Manon Lloyd has joined Olympic and World champion Elinor Barker on the 35-strong British Cycling podium programme for 2017/18 season.
The 21-year-old Carmarthen-born rider was a member of British Cycling’s Olympic Development Programme from a young age and was crowned as double European junior champion in 2014, winning the gold medal in both the team pursuit and the points race.
She graduated onto the Olympic Academy Programme in October, 2014, and trained with the female endurance academy squad based in Newport. A year later she was selected for the Senior Academy based in Manchester.
She won gold in the team pursuit at the European Under 23 Track Championships in Italy in 2016 and then stepped up to claim a bronze in the same event at the senior championships. She then struck gold twice at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Glasgow later that year.
Her first medal came in the team pursuit before she teamed up with Katie Archibald to win the inaugural women’s Madison, recovering from a major collision to win gold in the final sprint. Those performances earned the rising Welsh start selection for her first World Championships in Hong Kong, where the British team finished fifth in the team pursuit.
This year she was in the British teams for both the European Junior and Under 23 Championships in Anadia
In the summer of 2017, Lloyd was part of the Great Britain Cycling Team selected for the UEC Junior and Under-23 Track European Championships in Anadia, Portugal. She struck gold with Ellie Dickinson in the Under 23 Madison and took bronze in the points race. Last month she joined Barker in wining silver in the team pursuit at the senior European championships in Berlin.
Olympic gold medallist Owain Doull is included among the road race squad, although hasn’t ruled out a potential return to the track for the 2020 Games in Tokyo to try to claim a second gold medal in the Team Pursuit. He was part of the British quartet that set a world record in Rio riding alongside Sir Bradley Wiggins, Ed Clancy and Steven Burke .
Burke and Clancy are included in the Men’s Endurance squad, while Doull is joined by fellow Welshmen and Team Sky riders Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe in the Road Race squad. The women’s Road Race squad includes Cardiff-based Dani Rowe (nee King), who married Luke Rowe’s brother, Matthew, at Llandaff Cathedral in September this year.
Great Britain Cycling Team Podium Programme Riders 2017/18
Men’s Endurance
Steven Burke
Ed Clancy
Kian Emadi
Chris Latham
Mark Stewart
Andy Tennant
Oliver Wood
Women’s Endurance
Katie Archibald
Elinor Barker
Neah Evans
Emily Kay
Laura Kenny
Manon Lloyd
Emily Nelson
Men’s Road
Owain Doull
Chris Froome
Dan McLay
Luke Rowe
Ian Stannard
Ben Swift
Geraint Thomas
Scott Thwaites
Women’s Road
Alice Barnes
Hannah Barnes
Lizzie Deignan
Mel Lowther
Dani Rowe
Sprint
Vicky Barnes
Jack Carlin
Philip Hindes
Jason Kenny
Katy Marchant
Ryan Owens
Callum Skinner
Joe Truman
Great Britain Cycling Team Senior Squad Riders 2017/18
BMX
Kyle Evans
Quillan Isidore
Paddy Sharrock
Kye Whyte
Tre Whyte
MTB
Frazer Clacherty
Annie Last
Cameron Orr
Daniel Tulett
Evie Richards
Emily Wadsworth
Sophie Wright