GB and Scottish sprint star Jack Carlin announces retirement from track cycling

British track cyclist and four-time Olympic medallist Jack Carlin has announced his retirement at the age of 28.

Carlin claimed a silver and a bronze at both the Tokyo and Paris Olympics, alongside three silver medals at the World Championships in 2018 and 2019, and is a former under-23 team sprint world champion.

In total Carlin achieved 19 international podium results across his ten-year senior career, with his four Olympic medals putting him third on the all-time list of Scottish male Olympians – only the great Sir Chris Hoy and swimmer Duncan Scott have more.

“It’s been a long process, because I took a bit of time away to find that fire and urge to go again for another four years,” he told The Independent and other media outlets ahead of the announcement.

“I got myself back into physical fighting fit shape [after Paris] but the motivation never came back, to give it my all. Looking back at my career, you can win or lose things by thousandths of a second, and if I wasn’t going to give that 100% – which I don’t feel like I have that to give – I don’t feel it’s worth doing. I feel like I’d be doing myself, the people around me, and the jersey a disservice.”

After Paris Carlin went travelling around south-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand with his partner Christie. The decision was made over time, but one particular moment stands out that crystallised the way he was thinking. “I was doing my own thing in the gym, and I was doing a clean, the thing slipped out of my hands, it dropped down and I just looked at it and went, ‘I don’t need to do this right now!’ I don’t even think I un-racked the weight, I just left and never stepped foot in that gym again. That’s when the cogs started turning, because old Jack wouldn’t have done that.

“I came to the conclusion that I wasn't doing it for the right reasons and I wasn’t doing it for me. And I'm content, truly happy with my career. I’ve achieved so much, and I thought, what else is there to chase, when I’ve not got 100% of me to give to that any more?”

The Scot initially took up cycling to aid his recovery after fracturing his ankles playing football, starting off mountain biking and road cycling in his early teens. “I realised I wasn’t very good in the wet and cold, which isn’t ideal for Scotland, and wasn’t very good up hills,” he noted. But the 2012 Olympics in London – when compatriot Hoy, who he cited as an “inspirational” figure, won two golds – inspired him to turn to the track.

His first major results came in 2016, when he won the under-23 team sprint world title alongside Joe Truman and Ryan Owens, with the trio picking up two gold medals at rounds of the elite-level Track Cycling World Cup in Apeldoorn and Glasgow. His first senior international medal came in the same discipline, a silver in the European Championships the same year.

“One of my fondest memories was – in the context of things not a big race – my first senior World Cup, in Glasgow, in 2016, the first time I’d competed for GB at an elite level at a world cup,” he said. “It was myself and two of the boys I came through the academy with. It was almost that coming home moment; in 2014 at the Commonwealths I was sat on the sidelines watching people I was training with, and then it was my turn and we ended up winning, and it was a surreal experience.”

In 2018 the Paisley native took silver at the World Championships in both the sprint and team sprint, with another sprint silver coming in the Commonwealth Games and a European bronze in the keirin the following year.

He took silver in the team sprint and bronze in the individual sprint on his Olympic debut in Tokyo, matching those exact results three years later in Paris – despite sustaining a broken ankle 12 weeks before the start of the Games. A medal in the keirin in Paris was also a distinct possibility before a late crash in the final took him out of the race.

Carlin is also a six-time European Championships medallist and a three-time Commonwealth Games medallist, in the sprint and keirin. He will miss the 2026 Commonwealth Games, back in Glasgow for the first time since the 2014 edition which propelled him to success on the track.

“The biggest temptation was the home Games, to represent Scotland, but I’m not 100% in it anymore – if I want to have the honour of having that jersey on my back, whether it’s Scotland or GB, I want to make sure I’m giving it everything I can,” he explained. In doing so he follows in the footsteps of Hoy, who hung up his wheels the year before the 2014 edition, and who gave Carlin some words of advice before he made his decision.

Carlin has been among the most consistent sprinters in the world over the last few years, but was unfortunate to be competing at the same time as new teammate Matthew Richardson – who represented Australia until after the Paris Olympics – and one of the best sprinters of all time, the Netherlands’ 16-time world champion Harrie Lavreysen.

Others may have been bitter at walking away without that major gold, but Carlin has no regrets. “I gave 100% to the programme and I gave my life to it, and did the best I could,” he said. “There’s not many people that have rubbed shoulders with [Lavreysen] on a regular basis and even to be in the same picture, sharing podiums – he is one of the best if not the best to ever do it. He’s almost the Chris of Chris’ era, untouchable. So I won’t wake up in cold sweats! I’m truly happy with what I’ve achieved.

“If I was to say to 18-year-old Jack you’re going to walk away in ten years’ time with four Olympic medals around your neck, I’d have bitten your hand off for that.”

There could yet be a return to the GBCT fold in the form of coaching later down the line, although for now he intends to “spread my wings” and explore what the future might hold.

“Hopefully I’ve inspired someone like myself over the years to pick the bike up and give it a go – whether that’s to the level I got to, or just going out and riding your bike, that’s what’s important,” he said.

All elite sport requires sacrifice and for Carlin as his family a sport as heavy on state-of-the-art equipment as track cycling required a little more than most. “I sold my Xbox for rollers when I was a kid, my parents sold one of the cars for a set of wheels so I could compete. What my parents gave me was their time and a kind of unwavering belief even when I didn’t have it.

“If I can inspire a kid from a similar background to me to really give it a go, and inspire others to help those people achieve what they want to achieve, the way I got helped, that would be massive.”