NEAH EVANS has had a more than decent start to 2022. The Aberdeen-based cyclist enjoyed a sunshine training break to Tenerife, won the British nationals upon her return and has now been immortalised in cartoon form by one of her sponsors.
In the Instagram era it may all be about posed pictures and flashy filters but there was something about being captured in a HUUB Thunderbirds comic strip offering top tips on how to enjoy cycling – alongside seven-time Olympic champion Jason Kenny no less – that fair tickled the former vet.
“It’s quite exciting,” she says. “Showing my age a bit but I’m old enough to remember Thunderbirds as a cartoon and never would I have thought I’d be involved in a comic strip with them.
“It’s not a bad likeness. We saw the first draft and they’d made me the same size as Jason and I told them that wasn’t going to work as he’s way taller than me! But then they came back with the finished version and it’s brilliant.”
Back in the real world there is plenty for Evans to be happy about too. Her performance at the British national track championships in Newport in early March – when she became national individual pursuit champion – was the culmination of a solid winter’s work from the Olympic winter medallist.
“I felt in pretty good shape but I wasn’t entirely sure how it was going to go,” she admits. “I’d just come back from a three-week training block in Tenerife so I knew I was in a good place but was a bit concerned about feeling a bit tired and wondering how it was all going to come together on race day.
“I hadn’t been on the track since last year so that was a bit of a shock to the system. I had to remind myself to keep turning left and not to stop pedalling!
“And it always feels nice when you come away with a title too. As you progress in your career and compete at European and world championships and the Olympics, people might feel that a British championship won’t mean as much to you. But it still does. It’s still very special.”
Glasgow and then Birmingham now feature prominently in the 31 year-old’s thoughts. The Sir Chris Hoy velodrome will be the venue for the opening round of Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup when Evans will again team up with good pal Katie Archibald at the first major cycling event to be held in Glasgow since before the pandemic.
The British women won the team pursuit at the same venue in the same competition back in 2019 and Evans is eyeing up a repeat.
“This whole block has been leading up to the Nations Cup so I’m really quite excited for that,” she adds. “Back in Glasgow with a home crowd behind us – it’s going to be special.
“It’s been a few years since the velodrome hosted a major international event like this and we know from previous experience that Glasgow is always a brilliant host.
“And hopefully it will help to continue building momentum ahead of the combined world championships in Scotland next year.”
After that all her focus will switch to this summer’s Commonwealth Games. Evans has turned down the chance to join a team for the road racing season to finetune her preparations for an event that she credits with catapulting her from aspiring cyclist to one capable of competing with the best when she clinched silver and bronze on Gold Coast four years ago.
She heads to Birmingham with a raft of new achievements to her name, focused this time on ascending to the top step of the podium.
“Gold Coast four years ago now was a key event for me. When I started out cycling I had no real hopes or ambitions.
“But the first major target was to see if I could represent Scotland at the Commy Games. And I managed to do that and come away with two medals so it was a bit of a turning stone for me. When I first stopped working as a vet in 2017 I thought I’d take a year out for Gold Coast then go back to the old job.
“But doing well there made me realise that I was better than I maybe thought and I could stick at cycling and not go back to being a vet. And that career sabbatical is still ongoing!
“So the Commy Games is a special event for me, the fact it’s in the UK again and a chance to represent Scotland. I just wish there was a Madison!
“It’s going to be hard but I’m not going to lie, I really want to get the gold this time. Without putting too much pressure on myself that’s what I’m after this time around.”
HUUB has partnered with Thunderbirds on a new range of International Rescue cycling jerseys available at huubdesign.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here