a silver medal in the British championships, though it might not have pleased Brian Annable, was a fantastic result for me, especially as it got me a place on the British squad, which meant once-a-month sessions, under the watchful eye of the national track coach Marshall Thomas, at the brand new Manchester Velodrome. It vindicated my decision to join The City and to devote more energy to track racing. I was still growing, and beginning to fill out, which made me less suited to other cycling disciplines, and my enthusiasm was increasing at a similar rate. By now I’d usually be at Meadowbank twice a week, once for training, once for track league; I was really keen and motivated, and I felt that I could go somewhere. I was improving with every race, which was massively exciting. It felt as though I was embarking on a journey, and I didn’t know where it would end; I didn’t know what the limitations were, or even if there were any. But I was desperate for help, for guidance – and there wasn’t much of that to be had.
I was also at another crossroads, a more important one. I was in my final year at school and considering my next move – a decision that wasn’t really helped by the computer programme I completed at school, which was supposed to tell me what career my skills and interests were suited to. Other than being convinced that I should go to university, I didn’t have a clue what I would do in the longer term, so I was curious to see what the careers advice would be. After feeding in all the relevant information – in response to questions as bizarre as ‘Would you rather work in a blue room or a green room?’ and ‘What’s your favourite month?’ – I waited anxiously for the answer that could determine my future.
Or not. The computer said: Brewer. Or advocate.
At school, as I have said, I was more interested in the sciences. I quite liked English too, eventually graduating from my ‘What I did at the weekend’ essays about BMXing. But I preferred logic to ambiguity. For my Highers – the Scottish equivalent of ‘A’ levels – I did maths, English, physics, chemistry and biology, but I was disappointed with my results. Having got ‘A’s in the preliminary exams, I ended up with two ‘B’s and three ‘C’s in the actual exams.
There’s an interesting parallel with sport here, I think. Academically, I never felt that I struggled. I got top marks in my Standard Grades, and progressed through school without ever really working – or feeling that I had to. When I got to fifth year, and the all-important Highers, I had that same mentality, and didn’t really work for them. I was complacent, thinking that, since I’d always done OK in exams, I’d sail through.
Looking through some of my report cards – an embarrassing but necessary part of writing an autobiography – I spot a theme emerging around this time, one that is sometimes buried, though not too deeply, in the subtext. In one I’m described as ‘a highly motivated pupil [but] I agree with [another teacher’s] remarks about chatting. Perhaps this is just a sign of enthusiasm.’ In physics, apparently I ‘ask and answer questions frequently – usually about physics’. In French: ‘I hope Chris will not spend too much time trying to be funny, which he undoubtedly is, but it must not be an end in itself.’ I think he meant that I was funny in French, not English. I should have stuck at it.
But it was my English teacher, Christopher Rush – now the highly respected author of several acclaimed books – who identified my biggest shortcoming. ‘Chris has performed ably on all fronts except one … the weak front? Failure to revise adequately for tests. The same must not happen when it comes to exams.’ Alas, Mr Rush, it did.
I recognize now that I was complacent about my school work – that I never felt it necessary to work hard for exams. Yet in sport the converse was true. In each sport I took part in I recognized the need for hard work; I never felt that it came easily, because there were always people better than me. Nobody ever told me I was ‘the next big thing’ – as certain of my young rivals were told. (Subsequently, quite a few have told me, whenever I’ve had any success, that ‘I always knew you’d do that …’ though I don’t remember them saying anything at the time.) In BMX, rugby, rowing and cycling, there was always at least one person better than me, meaning that I could never rest on my laurels. One thing I’ve realized about myself is that I can put 100 per cent into something, but only if I’m really motivated to. Maybe that’s the case for most people, but I think that if sport had come easily to me – if I’d been top of the tree – I would probably have lost interest at an early stage.
After my silver medal at the 1994 British track championships I was satisfied, because it meant I had made progress, but there was absolutely no danger of me being complacent. I knew that if I were ever going to beat the James Taylors of this world I’d have to work very hard. And I’d have to combine it with my studies for a university degree. Despite my disappointing grades in the Highers, I got an unconditional offer from St Andrews University to study physics and maths. St Andrews was perfect: far enough away from Edinburgh to ensure that I wouldn’t go running home at the first opportunity, but close enough to return if I wanted to.
My first year at St Andrews University, which turned out to be my only year, was brilliant. I threw myself into student life, going out most nights, making new friends, eating rubbish and enjoying a drink or two, or three. It was great fun, if incompatible with the life of an athlete, though I had decided not to be an athlete that first term. At least I think I had decided, but maybe I didn’t decide; maybe it just happened. And I was pretty sure I could get away with it, more or less. In those days track cycling was a summer sport – it switched to winter a few years ago – and the serious work wouldn’t need to start until the New Year.
At home over the Christmas holidays I got back on my bike, and when I returned to St Andrews for the second term I scaled back on the social life. Easter brought an exotic racing trip to Trinidad and Barbados, which would set me up for a year of solid progress, though it started with a bang, following a crash, that ended with me sporting a neck brace.
The racing in the West Indies really has to be witnessed to be believed; it is like nowhere else, and should definitely feature on the ‘must do’ list for any track cyclist. It is strange, because, at international level, riders from this part of the world haven’t had massive success; and yet to race there, in front of thousands of exuberant fans, you’d think it was the national sport. The meetings are like carnivals with an atmosphere similar, I would imagine, to the biggest cricket matches, with the fans singing, dancing and chucking ice cubes at you as you raced. Well, it is hot.
Riding our bikes into Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, we were treated like heroes, but even that didn’t prepare us for the atmosphere inside the velodrome, with its large, concrete, lumpy track, a running track around the inside, and stands absolutely jam-packed with people, probably around 5,000 of them. I was there with two fellow sprinters, Craig MacLean and Peter Jacques, and the endurance rider Martin Williamson, all City of Edinburgh club mates, and on the first night I lined up alongside eight other riders for a keirin. The others were from the islands, with some South Americans there too, including a couple of Cubans who quickly gained a reputation for their no-holds-barred style of racing.
There was some pretty rough riding, to be honest, with the rules sketchy, and an anything-goes approach, particularly when it came to ‘primes’. These are special prizes awarded at the end of certain laps, announced the lap before with a blast of the ‘commissaire’ (referee)’s whistle. Some of these guys would run over their granny to win a prime – a prime, I should add, that carried prize money (we worked out) of approximately £3.50.
In the keirin, with the lumpy track and the jostling, it felt dangerous, and so it proved. I was ‘hooked’ by one of the Cubans, meaning he cut across my line, and down I went, like a tonne of bricks.
