Britain's world champion Barker sisters aiming to compete for gold side by side at Paris 2024
Track cyclists Elinor Barker and Megan Barker won world gold in the women's team pursuit in August and are now eyeing Paris 2024 to replicate the "dream-come-true" feat.
"There hasn’t been a track worlds without a Barker in for the last 10 years," posted Megan Barker, one half of the track cycling siblings after being selected alongside sister Elinor Barker for the 2023 World Championships in Glasgow, "but, so far, every time one of us is up, the other has been down (or pregnant). So we’re glad that the form gods have finally allowed us to get to the world champs together for the first time!"
It was worth the wait.
The siblings won gold in the women's team pursuit, alongside Anna Morris and Josie Knight, with two-time Olympic champion Katie Archibald replacing Megan in the quartet for the final.
GB will be looking to repeat that success at the upcoming UEC Track Elite European Championships taking place in Apeldoorn, Netherlands from 10-14 January, the continental championships serving as another opportunity for nations to gain ranking points toward qualification for Paris 2024.
GB women currently sit atop the standings in the discipline with the qualification period ending on 14 April, but the battle for places on the team will be fierce, particularly with the return of the most successful British female Olympian of all time, Laura Kenny after the birth of her second child in July.
The five-time Olympic champion has not been announced as part of the European squad, but the siblings have been officially selected, again alongside Knight and Morris, and all will be keen to continue to show they are the ones to be usurped from their saddles come Paris.
Their blistering finish at the 2023 Worlds, in which they beat New Zealand by five seconds, secured a first women’s team pursuit title since 2014.
Elinor was part of that 2014 squad, defending the same title she had won in her first year as a senior, in 2013.
Olympic gold followed for the older sibling at Rio 2016, with eight more world medals, including three individual top spots in two points races and one scratch race secured up to the originally scheduled Tokyo 2020 Games.
Silver was the return from Japan, delayed from 2020 to 2021, from which Elinor returned home with more than just a medal. While at the Games, she found out she was pregnant.
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Megan Barker emerges while Elinor becomes a mum
While Elinor took some time out to have baby Nico with partner and former track cyclist, Casper Jopling, younger sister Megan was emerging on the world stage after overcoming some considerable health issues that had kept her out of contention for the British set up for the previous two years.
In October 2021, Megan made her first senior appearance at a Track Cycling World Championships, winning bronze in the women's team pursuit in Roubaix, France.
The following year, an upgrade to silver in the same discipline at the Vélodrome National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines – boding well for the Paris Games, with the venue hosting the track cycling – in 2022 set up the home Worlds success in Glasgow.
The days of overcoming glandular fever, pneumonia, and blood clots in her leg and on her lung receding into the background with each podium place awarded.
Meanwhile, Elinor was plotting her own return, acknowledging that it was the likes of Kenny, Lizzie Deignan and Sarah Storey, who paved the way for mums to return to the track at the highest level.
"Because of these women (and many more) I didn’t doubt the future of my career for one second. I’d always been in awe of what they’ve each achieved since becoming parents, but only recently have I fully understood the full power of what each of them has done," said Elinor, who left Scotland as a double world champion in two Olympic events (also in the Madison).
"Until a few years ago, I had assumed having a baby would mean the end of my career," said the 29-year-old, who had been open about an endometriosis diagnosis at 23, which doctors had warned could make it difficult to conceive. "Now it doesn’t even have to mean the end of my season."
The joy of winning world gold together was the culmination of the Barker's moving parts finally aligning.
“The chance to win at home is so special and I can’t believe we did it. I rode it with my sister Meg, and Anna Morris and I went to school together, so what are the chances of that!" posted Elinor after the Worlds.
Megan put it more succinctly: "dream come true #worldchampions".
Road to Paris
With less than seven months to go until the next Summer Games, the pair are now looking toward the ultimate accolade – Olympic gold. But more than most, the duo will be enjoying the journey that they hope will take them there.
"I wouldn’t have thought much about a couple of hours ride with my sister a year ago," posted Elinor two months after giving birth, "but I’ve been looking forward to this morning for days 😁
"I know I’m not as fit as I used to be yet, but compared to riding with an 8lb hitchhiker in my belly I feel invincible."
No doubt winning world gold together cements that feeling for the siblings, a concerning thought for their rivals come 5 August as the best in the world take to the track at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome.