The Sisters Aiming For Olympic Glory

Cycling Weekly spoke with Elinor and Megan Barker, sisters from Cardiff with the same dream of Olympic glory in the team pursuit.

- Sophie Hurcom

Siblings riding and competing together is nothing new, from Miguel and Prudencio Indurain, Andy and Fränk Schleck to Adam and Simon Yates; the list goes on. But how many have won Olympic medals riding in the same event? That’s the ultimate goal for Elinor and Megan Barker — riding the team pursuit together at an Olympics and winning a medal. Only two sets of brothers have achieved the feat. The last pair to do so was Heinz and Herbert Richter, who won silver in the team pursuit for East Germany in 1972; while the Wyld brothers — Harry, Lloyd and Percy — won bronze in the event for Great Britain all the way back in 1928.

Although the Barker sisters are separated by three years — Elinor is 21 and Megan 18 — such are their similarities they could be mistaken for twins. Both have the same long, blonde hair; they finish each other’s sentences and are at times difficult to tell apart when talking.

And as well as their mutual love for the team pursuit, they have both progressed through the British Cycling system. Elinor joined the Olympic Development Programme in 2011 and won her first of two senior world titles in the discipline two years later — a spot in the squad in Rio should have her name on it. Megan is following suit, having joined the BC Senior Academy last September (formerly known as the Olympic Development Programme), and already has her eye on a spot in the team pursuit quartet in four years’ time. The way things are going, both could be competing in the event for GB in Tokyo in 2020.

“We’re thinking about it in the back of our minds,” Elinor says. “It’s four and a half years away so we’re trying to think of the more immediate plans at the moment, but it is quite an exciting thought. Fingers crossed it’ll be my second Olympics, and we’ll both be riding the team pursuit together.”