Evans emerges from madison chaos hungry for more than silver

If you want to get a sense of the bedlam of the madison in a sweat box of a Velodrome, you just had to watch Neah Evans be helped off the track after claiming a hard-earned silver medal.

Breathless and dripping in sweat, she was draped in an ice vest by one of Team GB’s staff, downed a recovery shake in one and stood for interviews, glistening.

“It is so chaotic,” Evans says, grinning. “There are other events – I don’t want to demean them – that are more straightforward.

“If you’re in good shape and execute your plan, you can predict it to a degree. Whereas, in the madison, you can be in the form of your life and someone crashes into you and it’s over.”

The sights and sounds are astonishing to behold. A crack of a starting pistol, then a low hum of wheels zipping on the wooden boards.

The track becomes a tumble dryer of colour as the riders jostle for position where there appears to be barely room to exhale.

Riders are literally flung into action by their partner, as they grip their arm while flying past at stunning speed.

Within 10 laps, a Swiss rider catches Evans and crashes to the floorboards. Nobody knows where to look.

Luckily Evans, a world champion with Elinor Barker and now two-time Olympic silver medallist, enjoys the thrills.

The Aberdeenshire rider was beaming as she spoke afterwards. She tends to do that.

Having only become a pro cyclist in 2017 after working as a vet, she definitely has fresh perspective. She knows a different kind of grind.

Then there’s the fact she battled back from illness in the spring just to make it to the start line in the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome.

“At the end of April I ended up with EBV [Epstein-Barr Virus], a bacterial infection, that properly floored me,” Evans discloses.

“The training plan was out the window. Honestly if at that point someone said ‘you will go to the Olympics and get a silver medal’ I’d have been like, ‘Not a chance’.

“I remember trying to walk up a flight of stairs and getting halfway up and thinking ‘I can’t get up these’… It was quite scary, so I’m delighted to come away with silver.”

Evans and Barker were defending the crown won by their compatriots Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald in Tokyo.

Despite plundering points in the sprints every 10 laps, they were outwitted by the crafty Italian pair Chiarra Consonni and Vittoria Guazzini who slipped off the front, along with the Netherlands before them, to steal a lap.

That meant 20 points in the can. Another element to watch in this 120-lap thrill ride.

A late surge by Barker meant Britain won the final sprint to overhaul the Dutch into second, but Italy were too far clear.

“I’m delighted with that but as world champion there’s just part of you that goes ‘argh I wish it’d been gold’,” Evans admits.

“You need to watch your back because so much happens. It’s just hard from the gun.

“So often in these races it goes on and then there’s a lull and then it goes again. But the nature of that race it just went and went and went.”

Luckily for Evans, a second chance at an Olympic gold medal is coming again on Sunday.

The 34-year-old races in the omnium, a series of four races each testing a different aspect of bike riding across the course of three hours.

“That’ll be fun,” she says with a laugh.

Except, you know she will relish going again amidst the chaos. Given her age, there is always a suggestion it may be Evans’ last chance at the Olympics.

It could well be. But she’s having none of it.

“Because I’m a bit older people are always like: ‘Aw, when are you going to retire?’

“I’m like: ‘Never!’…Well at some point but I love what I do. Obviously you’re nervous before you go out but I love it – and that’s why you do it.”