It wasn’t until last summer was well in Lauren Bell’s rear view mirror that she was able to appreciate that missing out on becoming an Olympian may, actually, have generated far more positives than negatives for her.
At the beginning of 2024, Bell was in close contention for a place in British Cycling’s Olympic squad for Paris 2024. But a combination of injuries and sub-par performances in the first few months of the year saw her miss out on Olympic selection.
Her omission from Team GB was, at the time, understandably devastating.
But Bell quickly came to realise that perhaps Paris wouldn’t have been the ideal place for her to make her Olympic debut after all.
“I do believe that everything happens for a reason and, looking back, I actually don’t think it was the right time for me to go to the Olympics,” the 25-year-old from Forres says.
"I wasn't very happy with the sport and I wasn't enjoying myself so if I had gone to Paris, I don't think it would have been a good experience for me and I don't think I'd have ridden as well as I'd have wanted.
“At the time, I was obviously massively disappointed, but now I realise that it was good to go away and reset and now, I'm happier than I've ever been riding my bike and I'm in better shape than ever. So yes, I took a couple of steps back, but then I took a lot of steps forward so it was a good lesson.”
(Image: Getty) It’s becoming ever more apparent that Bell has used her 2024 disappointment as a springboard.
She has begun this year in astonishingly good form, winning silver at the European Championships as part of Britain’s team sprint squad before claiming a hat-trick of sprint titles at the British Track Cycling Championships.
She attributes most, if not all of her improvement down not to any physical changes but rather, to a shift in mindset which has seemingly transformed her as an athlete.
“I got a bit too obsessed with cycling, and that actually made me a worse rider,” she says.
“I was putting so much pressure on myself and I was expecting more from myself than I had to give. I’m very much the type of person who needs a normal life away from cycling but I’d started restricting myself from having that.
“So now, I've not changed my training drastically but I’m in a much better place mentally and it reflects in my performances.”
Bell’s next outing comes this weekend as part of GB’s team sprint squad at the opening Track Nations Cup of the season, which begins today in the Turkish city of Konya, with the major goal of this season October's World Championships where the Scot will be hoping to improve upon the silver medal she and her GB teammates won at the 2023 World Championships.
That Bell already has such a sizeable medal haul is remarkable given she only became a cyclist in her late teens having taken part in a talent identification programme. But, as is so often the case with elite athletes, she rarely looks backwards, instead focusing on where she wants to go in the sport. Consequently, she often has to be reminded, or remind herself, of quite how rapid her rise has been.
“I now force myself to take a step back and look at my progress,” she says.
“When I look back at videos from a few years ago, I look absolutely terrible - so I do that just to remind myself of how much I've improved. And I do small things like write down if I've done something well in training so that when I've got any self-doubt, I can look at that and see that progress is happening.”
Already, Bell has one eye on next summer, when the Commonwealth Games will come to Glasgow.
Given she wasn’t even close to considering herself a serious bike rider the last time the Games were in this country, in 2014, it says much about the trajectory Bell’s career has taken that she will, all going to plan, be one of Team Scotland’s most experienced riders next summer, as well as one of its brightest medal hopes.
"Being part of the Scottish team for the Commies in 2022 was the best time I've had in cycling, so it's so nice to be looking forward to that again,” she says.
“It's always important to have something to strive for and for the Games to be in Glasgow is incredible - I feel so motivated for it.”
