New race, same results

By the time she won her first UCI European Track Championship medal, at the 2013 championships in the Netherlands, the team pursuit had evolved into a four-rider race and moved up from 3 to 4km. Barker won her first senior European gold at those Apeldoorn championships in a five-rider squad that now included Katie Archibald and Joanna Rowsell, as well as King and Kenny. Although a new event, the British could still be satisfied with a new world record of 4:26.452 - the first of many Barker and her colleagues would set.

Indeed, world records have been a by-product of such team pursuit success for Barker and her colleagues with the Welsh rider having been part of a team that set new marks on an incredible 10 occasions between September 2013 and the Rio Olympics in 2016 when Kenny, Rowsell, Archibald and Barker rode to gold in a time of 4:10.236.

The preparations for the 2016 Olympics in the new version of the women’s team pursuit continued with Barker helping Great Britain successfully defended their titles at the UCI World Track and UEC European Track Championships.

Barker also made her Commonwealth Games debut for Team Wales in 2014, losing to Kenny in the points race and adding a bronze to that silver in the scratch race where she was the first British finisher. Not until the 2015 World Championships, in France, did the team pursuit team of Barker, Kenny, Archibald and Rowsell lose in competition for the first time, ]edged into silver by old rivals Australia; although the same group were back to winning ways in the Euros held in Grenchen, Switzerland, in October.

There was an early warning for the British team, ahead of the Rio Olympics, at the UCI World Championships, held in London in March, when a disjointed ride in the heats relegated the hosts to the bronze medal ride, which they subsequently won. However, there would be no such error in the Olympic Games, with the quartet shining in Rio, breaking the world record three times on their way to gold in a time that is still yet to be bettered: 4:10.236.

Individual successes

Post-Olympics, Barker experimented with individual events at the very highest level for the first time, collecting a silver in the 2016 UEC European Track Championships, losing the scratch race to Ausrine Trebaite of Lithuania.

The experiment continued, with great success, throughout 2017; notably in the UCI World Track Championships in Hong Kong where she won her first individual world title in the points race edging out legendary track rivals Sarah Hammer of the USA and Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands.

Barker added silvers in the scratch race and Madison, with promising youngster Emily Nelson, in Hong Kong before adding to her collection of European golds in Berlin in October 2017, winning the Madison with Eleanor Dickinson. There was also a rare European defeat for the Great Britain women’s team pursuit squad in Berlin as a young, experimental line-up lost to Italy in the final.

The 2018 season involved another Commonwealth Games appearance and her first gold, in a thrilling points race win over GB team-mates Katie Archibald and Neah Evans, both riding for Scotland.

Meanwhile, the team pursuit medals continued to mount up although there was defeat at the UCI World Track Championships in the Netherlands where they were edged out by their growing rivals the USA.

The GB women gained a consolation in the UEC European Championships where, roared on by a home Glasgow crowd, the team of Barker, Kenny, Archibald and Evans beat Italy in the final by nearly nine seconds.

With Tokyo 2020 looming, Great Britain opened 2019 with a team pursuit silver behind Australia at the UCI World Track Championships in Poland although Barker won her second individual world title in the scratch race when she beat top Dutch rider Wild.

At the 2019 Euros, Barker experienced her eighth podium appearance in that championships as the GB women won gold in the team pursuit while the original Olympic year of 2020 opened with another team pursuit silver in the UCI World Track Championships in Berlin where the USA continued to establish themselves as the team GB would have to beat in Tokyo.

Barker also won gold in the points race at the Berlin Worlds before the Olympic postponement saw her end a truncated 2020 campaign with her best all-round showing yet at a UEC European Track Championships.

On the track in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Barker helped a team pursuit line-up of Kenny, Archibald and Evans beat perennial rivals Italy in the final while she added a gold in the elimination race and bronze in the Madison, where she teamed with Kenny.

Palmarès