Scotland’s Katie Archibald took her first Commonwealth title with victory over Australia’s Rachel Wiasak in the final of the women’s individual pursuit today. Her brother, John Archibald, took silver in the men’s event behind England’s Charlie Tanfield.
Katie Archibald finished in 3min 26.088sec to beat Australia’s Rebecca Wiasak. “The Archibalds aren’t known for parties but this is going to be the biggest Friday night we’ve had in a while,” she told BBC Sport.
“You sometimes feel embarrassed about over-egging the pride of wearing the Scotland jersey, but this meant so much.”
Tanfield’s winning time was 4min 15.952sec. He had earlier set a new Commonwealth record of 4min 11.455sec in qualifying.
He told ITV: “I saw all my main rivals got catches in their qualifiers and that helps a lot, maybe a second and a half. I knew coming into it I wouldn’t get a catch so I was just going to have to go full gas. That was the outcome, so I was so happy with it.
“It all depends on the conditions, it’s so hard to estimate what splits you want to do to hold on to the finish. In qualifying I definitely got it right but in the final I almost paid the price for a bit of a juicy start. But I managed to get to the end and get the gold and that’s the main thing.”
The amateur rider from Yorkshire also won gold in the individual pursuit at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in January.
