Neah Evans is hoping to put the frustration of 2023 behind her as she sets her sights on the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
The endurance track cyclist from Cuminestown near Turriff enjoyed plenty of success last year, becoming world champion in the madison and European champion in the team pursuit.
But, despite those achievements, it was a season where Evans, 33, felt she could not catch a break with a series of setbacks affecting her preparation for major events.
“It’s probably part of my personality type because I do hold myself to quite high standards,” said Evans.
“I’m always looking to improve and analyse where things have gone wrong.
“For me, last year with racing, every event there was a little blip of something happening that didn’t give you a good lead in. With the World Championships, I had a crash the week before.
“As much as that is life and these things do happen, normally it is like one event in the season and the rest you get a relatively clean run-in.
“But last year it just seemed to be constant. There was always something happening beforehand and it definitely affected some of the results.
“I did start feeling like: ‘why can’t things just work out for once?’ – so, hopefully I have used up all my bad luck now and I can get a good run going in to Paris.”
Evans revelling in chance to go to Olympics as world champion
If Evans is selected for Team GB at her second Olympics, having medalled at Tokyo in 2021, she will go to Paris as madison world champion – which she says brings an added pressure to an already high-stakes stage.
“Going in as world champion to the Olympics in an Olympic event is pretty special,” said Evans.
“It definitely bodes well, but there is more pressure. As soon as I am in front of the starting block of the madison race then all eyes are on you.
“It is like people are almost waiting for you to make a mistake and in the madison that is all too easy to happen.
“There is a huge amount of pressure, but I actually quite enjoy it. If it was easy then anyone would do it.
“Because there are not many opportunities to race then you want to capitalise on them all.
“You want to make the most of it and learn as quickly as you can. The sport is always developing and the tactics are always evolving.
“We are all trying to be one step ahead and because it is an Olympic year, you don’t want to waste any opportunity to learn and be trying out a new strategy on that stage for the first time.
“It would have been nice to show how well I was going (in the madison) at the European Championships.”
European Championships bittersweet after crash in madison
What Evans is alluding to is this month’s European Championships in the Netherlands where she and her team-mate Elinor Barker pulled out of the madison following a crash.
And Evans was left with a case of deja vu as her overarching feeling after the competition was disappointment, despite winning silver medals in the team pursuit and omnium.
“You say to someone: ‘I got two silver medals’ and that you’re disappointed with that – and they look at you like you’re nuts,” said Evans
“I went into the omnium with an open mind and I knew physically I should be alright and I should be able to medal, but there are a lot of unknowns with that one. It wasn’t my main focus whereas the madison had been.
“When the omnium went pretty well I thought it gave me a lot of confidence for the madison.
“You build yourself up and you’ve got the whole physical preparation, but the mental preparation is huge.
“You build up to this pinnacle, especially when it is the last event on the last day, it was just a wave of emotions. It just fizzled out, which is the best way to describe it.
“Sometimes in racing you don’t get the result you would like but you can reflect on it and think ‘I made this mistake or whatever to deal with it’, but, with this, it feels like we didn’t really get the chance to race so it’s hard to process it in the usual way.
“But it’s part and parcel of the sport I’m in. It’s pretty unpredictable and these things happen.”
Olympics a chance to showcase track cycling to the masses
The pressure of an Olympics, Evans says, does not just apply to performances on the track she explains how it is a chance to showcase the sport to a new audience.
It is a responsibility that hits different with Evans who came to the sport late when she swapped the athletics track for the velodrome while in her final year at university.
“There is an added pressure because, in the nicest way possible, track cycling is not the most well known sport and it doesn’t have the same following like football, which is a sport where everyone follows the World Cup and the Olympics is maybe less important for them,” said Evans.
“Where for us as track cyclists, everyone gets behind us for the Olympics.
“People who have never watched cycling before will watch it because it is the Olympics.
“There is a huge amount of pressure in terms of the awareness in that people who didn’t really care how you raced now really do care.
“Whenever I get the opportunity, I do try and promote track cycling because I came into it quite late. I tried it and thought this is just fantastic.
“I thought more people need to try this out because this is a really good sport.
“I don’t have a big online presence, so don’t always have the best platform to promote the sport, but the publicity you get around the Olympics is completely different.
“All of a sudden people who wouldn’t really care about my opinion actually want to listen.”
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