“I cannot believe it. Last night, I said to Jase ‘this is going to be my last race’. When I watched Adam Peaty last night I completely reflected on his interview and I thought ‘that is me, that is me all over’. I have lost the spark, training does not come that easy, every day I am like ‘here we go again’. I have been there, three Olympic cycles now, to keep picking yourself up after this whole year it has just honestly been a nightmare. I had absolutely lost motivation.
“And then, last night, I was messaging my new coach, Lem, and I went ‘No! I am not giving up. I am not giving up on this. I have got one more roll of the dice, just tell me.’ It could not have been better set up if it tried, could it? Grace is a young rider and I said, you go early, you do you, don’t worry about me. And then Sophie rolled over and I thought hallelujiah. It is literally unfolding in front of me. And then when Neah went, from about two laps out, I thought ‘I’ve done it’. To cross the line here, to do it here in London, I could not ask for more.
“I know what it is like to lose here. Yesterday was a bad taste to be honest. I was not in the right frame of wind. To see Wallsy (Matt Walls) crash like that, it really makes you think what am I doing. I have been lucky in my career, I have had one broken shoulder and one broken arm. It really has not been that bad. And you see something like that. I messaged Monica straight away and said I was having a serious confidence crisis, I just did not want to be on the track. And when I feel like that I race badly. And I do not get a result.”
“But today, I was so fired up. I kept saying to myself in the toilet: I can do this, I can do this. Obviously because I have got no points I was miles back at the start and some man on the track was like ‘You’ve got this Laura’ and I wanted to turn to him and say ‘yes I have!’ I felt like a completely different bike rider.”
