Katie Archibald is retiring after 13 years on the track
Katie Archibald MBE has announced she’s retiring from the Great Britain Cycling Team. The three-time Olympic medallist steps away as a current world and European champion — and as part of the squad that holds the women’s team pursuit world record.
She came to the sport relatively late, and almost by accident. Cycling was social at first — grass track, good company — but it turned out she was exceptionally good at it. The GB team came calling in 2013 when she was 19, and she never really looked back. Though she’ll admit her early ambitions weren’t quite what you’d expect: growing up in the Scottish cycling scene, making the GB team wasn’t exactly the dream. “My early journey through the sport was about getting to the Commonwealth Games, not the Olympics,” she says. That changed the moment she walked into the National Cycling Centre in Manchester for her first performance trial. “I quickly learnt that what connects everyone in that building, from Cardiff to Belfast, is nothing more complicated than sport.”
Her senior debut was a winning one — European team pursuit gold alongside Laura Kenny, Dani Rowe and Elinor Barker. From there the results piled up: six European titles before her first Olympics in Rio, then two Olympic golds, a silver, Commonwealth gold, seven world titles and a remarkable 21 European titles in all. The final tally across 13 years is 51 medals at world, European, Commonwealth and Olympic level.
Some moments stand out more than others. Her first major solo medal — a bronze in the points race at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow — still lives in her body as much as her memory. “It came down to the final sprint. Every thought disappeared. It was like I didn’t have a brain anymore; I just existed as a body — and it felt incredible.” A decade later, racing the Madison with Neah Evans at the Milton Nations Cup in 2024, she felt something similar: “I’ve never felt more connected to what I’m doing, so in control of every decision and reaction, and so sure I was exactly where I was meant to be, doing exactly what I was made to do.”
Then there was winning the first-ever women’s Madison at the Tokyo Games alongside her friend Laura Kenny — an event that had only made it onto the Olympic programme in 2016, and one Archibald feels a particular pride in helping establish. Leading the team pursuit squad to Britain’s first world title in that event since 2014 at the Glasgow world championships in 2023 was another. And after a freak injury ruled her out of Paris 2024 just weeks before the Games, she came back to help the team retain the pursuit world title later that year.
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She also represented Scotland at two Commonwealth Games, adding silver and gold on the Gold Coast in 2018 to her Glasgow bronze.
Not everything went smoothly. She describes pulling into Tebay services on the drive from Glasgow to Manchester once, waiting for a selection email she was convinced would go her way. It didn’t. “I just sat in the Tebay services car park and cried for a while.” While she was sitting there, her phone rang — a teammate who’d been selected ahead of her, calling not to check on her, but to ask for advice on something else entirely. “She was calling for help, it was help I could give, and that felt brilliant. It’s just a small moment that reminds me when I’m feeling low, the answer to feeling better usually isn’t by going deeper inside myself — it’s by finding somewhere I’m needed, outside myself.”
Away from the results, Archibald has been a vocal, honest presence in the sport — talking openly about the harder parts of elite life and consistently championing cycling at every level, particularly for women and girls.
As for why now: “It’s not a very clean answer, but now is the right time simply because I’m not scared anymore. I only have a craving to live the life I’ve been saving for a rainy day, and no fear that I’ll miss the sunshine.”
She’s been training as a nurse since last September — something she’s keen to stress isn’t the reason she’s retiring, but which is absolutely making the transition easier. “I’ve fallen completely in love with the whole thing. It feels so special being someone people can trust when they need help.” She’ll be stepping back from public life to honour that trust, though she’s keeping her column in Rouleur.
On legacy, she’s characteristically unshowy: “I’m not hoping for a grand legacy, but I hope I’ve made an impact on the individuals I’ve worked with.” Then, almost as an aside: “I’m also the reason you say ‘P1’ instead of ‘man 1’ if you’re a woman who rides team pursuit for the GBCT. I guess that’s a bit of a legacy.”
Her advice for young cyclists who want to reach the top? “Join a team. Find a team to be part of. Formal or informal, whatever it is — teams make individuals stronger.”
