In the latest in our #TokyoThursdays series, we sat down with Milngavie’s Anna Shackley to discuss selection for her maiden Olympics, her breakthrough at the Women’s Tour of Scotland and starting out with Glasgow Riderz.
Shackley’s Olympics get underway on Sunday morning with the Women’s Road Race – the 140km race from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji is a course that the 20-year-old thinks will bring the best out of her.
“I definitely say that hillier races suit me better. It’s not quite as hilly as the men’s but it there is still quite a lot of climbing for the length of the race. There is a 40km drag in which I hope to do my bit for Lizzie Deignan.”
Milngavie’s Shackley will be the sole support for London 2012 Silver Medallist Deignan, as a much smaller field of only 67 riders is permitted in the Women’s Road Race, as the Scot explained:
“The Olympics are a bit of a strange event with the fact that a lot of really good riders are missing because the field is so small, which should make it interesting.”
More light-heartedly, Shackley remarked:
“A smaller bunch also means no excuses for bunch positioning”
The former Team 22 rider indicated that the Dutch dominance may be slightly curtailed with the smaller team permitted in the event.
“I think the Dutch will be very dominant as they have an amazing team. It will be strange as it’s just me and Lizzie whilst five other teams have four riders – which puts us on the back foot with numbers. I suppose if something goes, we probably won’t be required to chase because it’s just the two of us."
It is a Dutch dominance that Shackley knows first-hand through her trade team the Dutch World Tour outfit SD Worx (formerly known as Boels-Dolmans), as she remarked on two of the Oranje Olympic team.
“I’ve learned a lot from Anna [van der Breggen] and Demi [Vollering] in training.”
Coming into the Olympics, Shackley did not race the Giro Donne, in which her aforementioned teammates van der Breggan and Vollering came home first and third, whilst her South African teammate Ashleigh Moolman Pasio also finished second overall; encouragingly her Team GB compatriot Lizzie Deignan finished in fourth behind the SD Worx trio.
Shackley has not raced a UCI event since May, fully focussing on training for these games, but the lack of race kilometres does not faze her, as she explained:
“I did a lot of Spanish races earlier in the season, and I went to an altitude camp with the team which was very good. I was meant to race La Course, so I’d have a race in between in between my training block and Tokyo, but I had to quarantine as I was a close contact of someone who had Covid. Though that allowed me to stay home for the first time in a while and train, which helped my head as well”
Although Shackley is now racing for one of the most prestigious teams in the women’s peloton, her first big success at the senior level came much closer to home in the 2019 Women’s Tour of Scotland.
“At the time I didn’t think too much of it, as it was just a Scottish race, and didn’t go in with any pressure, but afterwards I realised ‘oh I was quite decent’ and it was probably the first time I realised this could be more than a hobby”
A thirteenth-placed finish, as well as the top British rider on general classification, the then 18-year-old only finished 28 seconds behind eventual winner Leah Thomas. However, one lasting memory of that race for Shackley (and probably for the rest of the peloton) was something far more predictable, the Scottish summer:
“It was proper Scottish weather that weekend, I’d never been so cold! I was pretty glad when they cancelled the first stage as we were going through puddles that were going over my knees!”
Shackley, like fellow Olympian Jack Carlin started out in cycling through the Glasgow Riderz at Bellahouston Park:
“I was around six, and my dad helped out at the club a lot, so I started going along. It was between that and dancing on a Saturday. I started with mountain biking with them before progressing to do some track sessions and then I started doing some Scottish races”
Although Shackley’s professional career has seen success in quite a short spell, her career as a developing rider took quite a while to progress, but that did not dispirit the climber.
“I was never very good as a Youth, I did a lot of races, and I also came last in a lot of them. I always enjoyed it, travelling down south to British events, and seeing a lot of different people.
“The moment I started doing well was a second year Junior, I won the first round of the National Junior Series – which was the first ‘big’ win for me. It was then I realised that with a bit of training, I could do not too badly.”
With Shackley being the only Team GB rider in the Wednesday’s Individual Time Trial, and only one of two in the Road Race, with already a 25th place in the World Championships under her belt, it would be safe to say that her career has not panned out too badly so far. We at Scottish Cycling, would like to extend Anna the very best wishes for her Olympic campaign that gets underway on Sunday morning.
