Elinor Barker

Elinor Jane Barker (born 7 September 1994) is a Welsh road and track cyclist, who has ridden for UCI Women's Team Uno-X Mobility since 2022. As a track cyclist, she is an Olympic champion in the team pursuit and a world champion in the team pursuit, madison, points race, and scratch race disciplines. She has won four Olympic medals (one gold, two silver and one bronze) during her career. Her overall tally of four Olympic medals is a record for a Welsh woman.

In her youth, Barker was the 2012 junior time trial world champion in road cycling. On her debut for Great Britain in November 2012, she was part of the team pursuit side that won gold in the World Cup event in Glasgow. The following year, she triumphed in the team pursuit at both the Track Cycling World Championships and European Track Championships. She helped Great Britain defend their world team pursuit title in 2014, and won a silver and a bronze at that year's Commonwealth Games. Further World and European Championships medals followed in 2015, and Barker won an Olympic gold medal in the team pursuit at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Barker won her first individual world title in the points race in 2017, won a gold medal in the same discipline at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and became the scratch race world champion in 2019. She won her second points race world title and a European title in the elimination race in 2020, and a silver in the team pursuit at the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics. Following maternity leave, she won two gold medals at both the European and World Track Cycling Championships in 2023. At the 2024 Olympics, Barker won a bronze medal in the team pursuit and a silver in the madison.

Barker is an Olympic champion, a three-time world champion and seven-time European champion in the team pursuit, as well as a two-time world champion in the points race, a world champion in both the madison and scratch race, a two-time European madison champion, and one-time European elimination race champion. She is also a Commonwealth Games gold medalist in the points race. In her road cycling career, she finished seventh at the Gent-Wevelgem in 2023, and third at the British National Time Trial Championships in 2023 and 2024.

Elinor Jane Barker was born on 7 September 1994 in Cardiff. The older sister of racing cyclist Megan Barker, Elinor took up cycling with the Maindy Flyers aged ten to avoid swimming classes and later attended Llanishen High School.

In 2011, Barker became the British national junior pursuit champion, finished runner-up in the British national junior scratch race, and claimed silver in the time-trial at the UCI Junior Road World Championships in Copenhagen. At the 2012 UEC U23/Junior European Track Championship, she won gold medals in both the junior individual pursuit and the team pursuit. At the UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships, she then won silver medals in the individual pursuit and omnium and a bronze in the team pursuit.

Competing in road cycling, she became the junior time trial world champion in 2012, completing the 15.6-kilometre (9.7-mile) course in Valkenburg, Netherlands in 22:26.29, beating Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig of Denmark by 35.87 seconds. That year, she joined the Olympic Development Programme.

Barker competed in the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in October 2012 in Cali, Colombia, where she won a silver medal in the team pursuit while competing for Team SWI Welsh Cycling. The following month, Barker made her debut for Great Britain at the Track Cycling World Cup in Glasgow as a replacement for an ill Joanna Rowsell. Barker, Laura Kenny and Dani King triumphed over Australia in the final. Barker was named Carwyn James Junior Sportswoman of the Year at the 2012 BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year awards.