'Setbacks can be very motivating!' - Katie Archibald on her injury-ravaged preparation for the Commonwealth Games

To say that Katie Archibald’s 2022 campaign has not gone according to plan would be a significant understatement. At the start of March she “fractured two transverse processes of the vertebrae” — i.e. broke her back.

Ad/> Then in April, on day three of the Glasgow round of the Track Cycling Nations Cup, Archibald was leading the omnium when she crashed badly in the middle of the points race. As the group she was in slowed subsequent to a sprint, Australia’s Georgia Baker drifted up the track and clipped the world champion’s front wheel with her own rear. Archibald could do nothing about it, and was dispatched to the deck the hard way.

Tour de SuisseCovid sweeps through peloton as Tour de Suisse, Tour of Slovenia hit by withdrawalsAN HOUR AGO The double Olympic champion, and winner of the inaugural UCI Track Champions League, did not get off lightly, suffering a broken collarbone that required surgery. Three months out from the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the injuries could not have come at a worse time. Worse was to come.

At the start of this month, not long after returning to the bike, Archibald was out training on the road when she was hit by an SUV. Both ankles were injured though, fortunately, neither broken. Archibald describes a complex relationship with such setbacks, in keeping with the character she has demonstrated over the course of her career.

“That kind of feeling can be very motivating,” she says. “You end up training, perhaps not harder than you ever have… but far more conscientiously. There’s another gear when the threat of your gold being taken away from you is dangled there.” Standing between the Scottish rider and Commonwealth gold will be Archibald’s Team GB partner, Laura Kenny, who will