Katy Marchant interview: Former jack of all trades aiming to become the master of one
Track sprinter tells Matt Westby about her remarkable sporting journey
Last Updated: 15/01/15 10:57am
When Katy Marchant rolls out into the Alcides Nieto Patino Velodrome in the Colombian city of Cali this weekend, it won’t be the first time she has represented Great Britain in world competition. It will, however, be the first time she has done so as a cyclist.
The 21-year-old from Leeds is the former jack of all trades who is trying to become the master of one and the 2014-15 season’s third and final UCI Track Cycling World Cup represents a major staging post in a remarkable sporting journey.
Just over two years ago she was one of Britain’s rising stars of heptathlon, training alongside Jessica Ennis-Hill under the revered coaching eye of Toni Minichiello at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.
But then word reached British Cycling’s number-crunchers over the Pennines in Manchester that she was producing abnormally high levels of power on an exercise bike and her career suddenly took a drastic turn.
“I had never even seen a velodrome before, let alone ridden in one,” Marchant says with a Yorkshire accent far thicker than that of former stablemate Ennis-Hill.
“But a part of our training was Wattbike sessions to help with lactate tolerance for the 200m and 800m and my power levels were always high. I used to have competitions with Jess and always beat her.
I went into the lab and did a few tests. I didn’t know what numbers I was putting out or if I had done well or not.
Katy Marchant
“One night Toni was going out with a guy called Matt Parker, who used to work for British Cycling, and he mentioned me to him. Matt said we should get in touch with British Cycling to see if they were interested, and it went from there.”
Having already welcomed Rebecca Romero over from rowing in the mid-2000s and coached her to Olympic individual pursuit gold in Beijing in 2008, British Cycling had no hesitation in taking a look at a promising heptathlete with the kick of a mule.
Marchant, 19 at the time and fresh from representing her country at the world junior athletics championships, arrived at the National Cycling Centre in January 2013 and duly reproduced the power output that had taken Minichiello aback.
“I didn’t know what numbers I was putting out or if I had done well or not," she says. "But eventually John Norfolk, who was the Olympic academy sprint coach at the time, contacted me and he asked if I wanted to try out on the track more seriously.”
When I first arrived at British Cycling I was pretty shabby. It looks quite simple, riding a bike around a track, but there’s a lot to it.
Katy Marchant
Norfolk offered Marchant a six-week trial, a welcome proposition but one that simultaneously left her with a dilemma: stick with heptathlon or start from scratch in another sport?
“It wasn’t like I was on my way out in heptathlon,” she says. “I had just been to the world juniors the year before and I was progressing really well.
“But the British Cycling coaches were really encouraged by what they had seen from me and they were quite excited, so I thought, ‘Why not give it a shot?’”
There was one problem. Marchant had very little experience of cycling of any sort – “I had a mountain bike at home that I dusted off two or three times a year at most” – so while her power needed only nursing, her technique and tactical awareness were that of a rank amateur.
“When I first arrived at British Cycling I was pretty shabby,” Marchant admits. “It looks quite simple, riding a bike around a track, but there’s a lot to it.”
The Europeans were a great experience. It was really nice and valuable to be part of the team at a major event like that.
Katy Marchant
Coaches were nonetheless impressed enough by what they saw in her trial to offer Marchant a full-time place as a sprinter on the Olympic Academy Programme in April 2013. She accepted and in so doing closed the door on her heptathlon career.
Her first major track cycling meeting was the British national track championships in Manchester that September and, despite her inexperience, she walked away with two silver medals and one bronze.
A promotion to the Olympic Podium Programme followed and after adding six more medals to her collection in 2014 – two bronzes at the European Junior and Under-23 Track Championships in July and two silvers and two bronzes at the British nationals in September – British Cycling saw fit to send her to the senior European championships in Guadeloupe last October.
“The Europeans were a great experience,” Marchant adds, despite having this time missed out on medals. “It was really nice and valuable to be part of the team at a major event like that.”
Which brings us to this weekend, when she tests herself on the world stage for the first time in cycling as part of a youthful British team in Colombia. A top-class field awaits and while medals are once again a big ask, she is not ruling out a first trip to a world podium.
My dream in cycling is the same as it was in heptathlon: to win an Olympic gold medal.
Katy Marchant
“I’m really excited about the World Cup,” she says. “Countries always tend to send B teams to the third World Cup of the season and that definitely presents an opportunity for someone like myself to make an impact.”
As for the long term, Marchant’s sport may have changed but her ultimate ambition remains the same.
“My dream in cycling is as it was in heptathlon: to win an Olympic gold medal,” she adds. “I don’t want to set my sights too high too soon because I haven’t been doing the sport for two years yet.
“I don’t think Rio 2016 is a realistic possibility, but Tokyo 2020 is definitely a big aim.”
