Triple Olympic medallist and British track legend Katie Archibald announces retirement

Triple Olympic medallist Katie Archibald has announced her retirement from track cycling. Over the course of a 13-year-career the Scot amassed a huge haul of 51 medals at world, Olympic, European and Commonwealth level, including two Olympic, seven world and 21 European titles - the latter an all-time record - to make her one of Great Britain’s most decorated track cyclists. She took up the sport relatively late but was talent-spotted by the Great Britain Cycling Team and brought onto the elite women’s track endurance squad as a 19-year-old in 2013, before going on to spearhead a golden age in British track racing.

She said: “The draw of the ‘real world’ has been pulling me for a while, but I’ve been too scared to leave the world I know and love and, ultimately, to let go of something I’m good at. It’s not a very clean answer, but now is the right time simply because I’m not scared anymore. “I can’t claim to know why that is, but for some reason I only have a craving to live the life I’ve been saving for a rainy day, and no fear that I’ll miss the sunshine.

It’s simply time. ” She also raced on the road, most recently for the WorldTour team Ceratizit-WNT, before stepping back in 2024. A passionate Scot, Archibald had previously been targeting the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this year, having won bronze in the points race - her first senior solo medal - in 2014 and points race silver and individual pursuit gold in 2018.

She admitted that in the early years of her career she “fell in with a minority attitude within the Scottish cycling scene that nothing is more important than beating the English”, and her initial focus was entirely about getting to the Commonwealth Games. Happily for the wider British squad, that changed once she got to the National Cycling Centre: “I quickly learnt that what connects everyone in that building, from Cardiff to Belfast, is nothing more complicated than sport. Being part of the GBCT has meant being part of something bigger than myself, and it’s been a true honour to race my bike alongside the best in the country.