Steven BURKE

The son of a mother who had also represented her country at cycling, Steven Burke had won national and international honours as a junior but was taken to the 2004 Olympic Games only as a reserve for the team pursuit. Due to a series of circumstances he was, at two days notice, told he would take part in the individual pursuit four years later in Beijing and responded by lowering his personal best for the 4,000 in all rounds that he contested. In all he took twelve seconds off his previous best and was rewarded with a surprise bronze medal. Burke has been a regular member of the pursuit team since Beijing and has won silver and bronze medals respectively at the 2010 and 2011 World Championships. He has also won national championships at both the pursuit and the kilometre time trial and won a gold medal in the team pursuit at the 2011 European Championships.

Burke started 2012 by winning the team pursuit gold at the UCI World Championships in world record time, and at the London Olympics the squad twice broke their own world record on their way to the gold medal. Further team pursuit medals followed in 2013 when the team won gold at the European Championships and silver at the Worlds, and in 2014 Burke won a Commonwealth Games silver. The following year, Burke was to break his collar bone whilst training in Mallorca in January 2015; his grandfather Brian Wesson, a former top class cyclist, fractured his skull while on holiday with his cycling club on the same island six years earlier. A little over a month after his accident, Steven was back in the saddle and collected a silver medal at the 2015 World Championships. He joined Bradley Wiggins’ team that same year, and alongside the former Tour de France winner, won his second team pursuit gold medal at the Rio Olympics, and for the second consecutive Games, the British squad twice broke the world record en route to gold.