Josie's Profile

Having found a passion for cycling through family holidays across Europe, Josie Knight has experienced an impressive rise through the ranks to being a stalwart of the British women’s team pursuit squad. She is part of the current world title winning squad and is hoping to be selected for her second Olympic Games in Paris later this year.

Born in England but raised in Co. Kerry in Ireland, Knight originally took out an Irish racing licence in order to ride at the European Youth Olympic Festival in 2013, eventually graduating to the full Ireland track squad.

Her promise was evident at the 2014 UEC Junior European Track Championships where she won silver in the individual pursuit, losing to Russia’s Daria Egorova by less than one second, before moving on to represent Ireland at the 2015 and 2016 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. Knight later changed nationality to join the Great Britain Cycling Team academy in 2019, riding as part of a team pursuit squad that won silver at that year’s European Games. 

Having been promoted to the podium squad in early 2020, Knight marked her rise through the ranks by winning the individual pursuit title at the British Championships in January 2020 and, in November of that year, was part of the gold-medal winning team pursuit squad that beat Italy in the final of the UEC European Track Cycling Championships. In 2021, Knight made her Olympic debut as a member of the team pursuit squad, along with Kenny, Elinor Barker, Katie Archibald, and Neah Evans. The team took home a silver medal and went on to claim bronze at the UCI World Championships in Roubaix, France later the same year.

The team pursuit’s steady upward trajectory led them to more medals in 2022, a Commonwealth bronze for an England team comprising Knight, Kenny, Maddie Leech and Sophie Lewis, and another silver at worlds in Paris later in the year, with Archibald, Evans, Meg Barker and Anna Morris. Knight also collected a bronze in the individual pursuit in Paris.

It was 2023 though that saw the team finally break through and take gold at World Championship level, storming to rainbow glory in Glasgow. The squad of Archibald, Knight, Morris, Elinor Barker and Meg Barker beat New Zealand to set themselves up as the team to beat heading into the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. 

So far in 2024, as the team pursuit squad build towards their Olympic dreams, they have picked up two silvers at the UEC European Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, and the UCI Track Nations cup in Adelaide, and gone one better in the most recent round in Milton, Canada. In the individual event, Knight has fired a warning shot to her opponents, taking gold to become European champion in Apeldoorn – her first ever individual international title.

Knight also has a pedigree in road cycling, having finished second on general classification, losing by just six seconds, at the 2019 Ras na mBan, Ireland’s premier international women’s stage race in which she won three of the four stages. In 2022, she rode for the Lotto Soudal Ladies team, taking part in a number of European stage and one-day races, before continuing her road career domestically in 2023.

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