Sprinting ahead to Paris

Kate Chapman meets cyclist Ed Lowe, who is making his Olympic debut with Team GB at this summer’s Games.

It’s been a long-held ambition for cyclist Ed Lowe to compete in the Olympic Games and this year he is delighted to make his debut with the men’s sprint squad in Paris.

Twenty-year-old Ed, who grew up in Stamford, began working with the GB Cycling Team Talent Development programme a few years ago and has been focussing on his goal of securing an Olympic spot ever since.

“It’s amazing to be selected,” said Ed, who attended The Kings School, in Peterborough.

“It was something I really didn’t expect. If you had told me this a year ago, that I would make the Olympic team, I would have said ‘no way!’ I never like to get too ahead of myself, I always thought I was in a good position, but things can change so quickly.

“Within the squad, those you’re in competition for a spot with can post a quicker time and suddenly everything changes. Selection has been my main aim. I’ve just been focussing on myself, my own performance and tried to put myself in the best position I can.’”

Team spirit
Team GB is sending its biggest-ever cycling delegation to an Olympic Games this year, and Ed will be joining teammates Jack Carlin and Hamish Turnbull, as they seek a podium finish in the three-rider team sprint event which takes place over three laps in the velodrome.

The team sprint involves two teams racing against each other, starting on opposite sides of the track. At the end of the first lap, the leading rider in each team pulls up the banking leaving the second rider to lead for the next lap; at the end of the second lap, the second rider does the same, leaving the third rider to complete the final lap on his own. The team with the fastest time wins.

“Team sprints have always been the best thing for me – that’s what I’m best at, in the position of man one, which is the starting leg on the team sprints,” explains Ed.

“Training through the pandemic was difficult, but I had my parents supporting me. My dad helped me with my own gym setup in the garage as we couldn’t go out to use them.

“He built me a starting gate; we tried to replicate what I would have been doing on the track outside as best we could. I made so much progress that year.”

Young talent
One of the youngest members of the GBCT Podium Potential Programme, Ed took part in his first elite level World Cup in Milton, Canada, in 2023, securing a bronze medal. Since then, he’s added another bronze and a silver medal to his collection after competing in UCI Track Nations Cup events in Australia and Canada this year.

It was after watching the Tour de France with his dad, David, when he was seven that Ed decided cycling was going to be the sport for him.

“When I was younger, I wasn’t really interested in cycling. From the ages of about four to seven I was always crashing my bike into the hedge or the trees. It took me a while to get properly interested,” he recalls.

“My dad had been a cyclist and in 2011 we were watching the Tour de France. I remember Mark Cavendish won a stage, and I said, ‘that’s what I want to do!’

“Me and my older sister Hannah were always quite sporty – I’d done football and athletics, but then, when I was seven, I got my first road bike for Christmas.

“I started going on road rides with my dad and I joined a British Cycling Go Ride group, doing grass track events in Kings Cliffe, near Peterborough. I did that for a few years until I was about 10 and I absolutely loved it. It was all I ever thought about, I was just so interested in it, always spending my pocket money and buying things for it.”

Ed started competing when he was 12. By this point he’d joined the Fenland Clarion Cycling Club in Peterborough, before switching to Bourne Wheelers. He competed on the road circuit until he was 15, when he says he began to struggle with the sport’s endurance element.

“My body just wasn’t capable of doing what I needed it to, so that’s when I made the switch to track cycling and realised I was pretty good at sprinting!

“Within a few months I got picked up by the GB Cycling Team Talent Development programme. Once I was on that apprentice programme everything was based in Manchester. I took part in a lot of camps and raced all over the UK. The GBCT programme puts you on the pathway to the Olympics, and that was the focus.”

Family support
Ed says it was exciting to pull on a GB jersey for the first time when he was 16. He competed at Apeldoorn, in the Netherlands in 2020, and now he can’t wait for Paris, where he’ll be joined by his parents Hilary and David, who are flying out to cheer him on.

“Now the selection process is done we can start focussing on what we’re looking to get out of it, working together properly as a team. I think all being well, if it goes right, it would be great to be on the podium. That’s what I’m aiming for.

“As well as the competition, just being in that environment with so many other athletes who are at the top of their game will be amazing. It’s still weird to think I’m also going!

“It doesn’t feel real yet! But I’m looking forward to spending time in Paris soaking it all in and making the most of it.”

Ed urges anyone else interested in taking up cycling to find local groups which they can join for rides.

“I loved riding my bike outside, exploring the local area, from a young age. I liked the freedom it gave me, and I still enjoy it now, being out in the fresh air. For any kid that wants to get into it, you have to make sure you enjoy it.

“I joined a Go Ride Scheme, they are located all over the country, join the local clubs, go out on the roads, you’ll find a way into it, to get racing.

“I was 15 when I started riding a track bike for the first time. It was quite steep – the bank was about 42 degrees – it’s completely different to the road, I was going a lot faster, but I loved it.

“It was hard training while going through secondary school doing GCSEs and A-levels, it became quite a struggle, but I can’t wait for Paris.

“I like to focus on one thing at a time, my eyes are completely on the Olympics right now, but after that, I’d like to compete at other major championships like the worlds and Europeans and hopefully make the next Olympics in Los Angeles too.”

To find out how you can get involved in cycling visit www.britishcycling.org.uk/getinvolved

Photographs: SWPix

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