Katie Archibald will not participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. This is very serious news for the British women’s national track cycling team, which risks losing three possible gold medal (or podium) chances in one fell swoop. The thirty-year-old Scot was in fact cultivating important ambitions in the omnium, in the madison and in the team pursuit.
Archibald announced his absence in Paris via a post on Instagram, in which he explained his in detail serious domestic accident: “I tripped on a step in the garden and somehow managed to dislocate my ankle, break my tibia and fibula, tear two ligaments from the bone“. Yesterday the British track rider underwent surgery, but the recovery time is too long to be able to be present in Paris.
The withdrawal of one of the strongest athletes on the planet obviously opens up new scenarios also (but not only) for Italy, which is aiming high in the three specialties in question: omnium, madison and team pursuit. Archibald boasts 2 Olympic titles in his career (quartet in Rio 2016, American in Tokyo 2021) and 5 world golds, in addition to the beauty of 20 overall victories at the European Championships.
