Charlie Tanfield will head to Paris 2024 looking to lay the ghosts of Tokyo to rest after his unexpected Olympic debut three years ago went so badly it made him consider quitting cycling.
The Yorkshireman travelled to Japan as the reserve rider in the British men’s team pursuit squad, but was suddenly pressed into action when three-time Olympic champion Ed Clancy announced his snap retirement through injury on the morning of the first round.
So unprepared was the team for Clancy’s abrupt exit that Tanfield spent the day before on a long road ride and it told in that first round as he was quickly dropped by his team-mates before being struck by a Danish team who never expected to find him riding around alone.
Images of the crash, an undignified end to Britain’s 13-year reign as Olympic champions in the event, went global, a horrible moment for the then 24-year-old Tanfield.
“It was heartbreaking because obviously you get the call up to say you’re racing tomorrow and you have this elation,” Tanfield recalled. “Then for it to go so badly is just terrible because, just like everyone else here, we’ve all been working hard just to get to the race.
“For it to not go well was terrible. I didn’t really know if I wanted to continue cycling.
“You don’t quite understand the gravity of it at the time because there was no-one there. I didn’t know what was happening at home. When I came home I didn’t quite realise until my girlfriend was saying, ‘Look, you’re on the front of the newspaper. There’s a picture of you decking it’.
“You understand then that it’s actually what everyone’s actually watching because you’re in a bubble when you’re there. It took me a good few months to actually start riding again. Then I started getting the ball rolling slowly and just started to enjoy it again.”
Since then Tanfield has battled to earn his place in a reinvigorated team that includes Ethan Hayter, Dan Bigham, Ethan Vernon and Ollie Wood, with Mark Stewart the travelling reserve.
Clancy may be gone, but the return of Tanfield’s old house-mate Bigham and a fresh approach from coach Ben Greenwood has helped Britain return to competitiveness in the event – raising the bar for selection.
Tanfield was missing with Covid when Britain won the world title in 2022 and then suffered a crash – this time his own error in qualifying – that ended their defence of that crown a year later in Glasgow.
It has made for an uphill fight, but in January Tanfield helped Britain to European gold alongside Bigham, Vernon, Hayter and Wood.
“I’ve had to pull everything out of the bag to get selected,” Tanfield said. “At one point I thought it was going to be more unlikely that I’d go than go. For me to be here and pull off the performances I managed to do this year has been really good for me. It’s a good feeling.”
Britain went to Tokyo widely tipped to lose their long-held crown, albeit not in the circumstances in which it happened. Italy and Denmark had both moved ahead of them in the years leading up to the Games and go to Paris as favourites again, but Britain have proved themselves contenders as well.
“Obviously there’s pressure,” Tanfield said. “That’s fine. You need it to perform well. If you’re going there and you felt really blase, you wouldn’t do that well. It’s really good for us that we’ve had such good year because I think it has set us up nicely.
“I’m determined to make sure that it goes well. I really want to go there and just do a really good performance and show people what I’m capable of.”