Elinor Barker Takes Gold In Canada To Keep Up Family Success

Elinor Barker stormed to a gold medal at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Canada.

The Welsh flier was part of the winning Great Britain squad in the women’s team pursuit in Ontario, alongside Laura Kenny, Katie Archibald and Ellie Dickinson.

It came after a week after 24-year-old Barker’s younger sister Megan won silver at the opening Tissot UCI Track World Cup event in France.

Elinor, part of Britain’s Olympic winning squad in 2016 and an individual gold medal winner at this year’s Commonwealth Games, was in a team that hit form again in Canada to beat Italy to the gold in a time of four minutes 18.138 seconds to win the 4,000-metre final.

It capped a successful recent spell of honours for the Barker brigade after Elinor won the Elite Performer of the Year award at last weekend’s Welsh Cycling Awards.

The Italians finished in 4:21.936 and New Zealand took bronze, narrowly defeating Germany.

Britain picked up six medals in the opening World Cup event in France last weekend.

The six-stage series offers the chance to win Olympic qualifying points, with round four of the six events taking place in London in December.

Riders earn themselves UCI ranking points dependent on where they finish in each race.