Megan's Profile

Having started cycling on the track from a young age, alongside sister Elinor, Meg is part of the team pursuit squad that holds back-to-back world titles in 2023 and 2024.

Megan Barker is an alumnus of one of the most fertile breeding grounds for elite level British cyclists, the Maindy Flyers in Cardiff. Alongside elder sister Elinor, Megan would see the riders from the club on her way home from swimming training and it wasn’t long before the Barker sisters were shifting their talents from the pool to the bike – Megan was just seven when she rode on the velodrome for the first time and began racing not long after. 

Meg’s early riding career featured a combination of disciplines including road racing as she graduated from the junior ranks to the elites, riding classics and stage races in northern Europe. On the track, Barker was part of a gold-medal winning junior team pursuit squad at the European Championships, but Barker several setbacks with her health, contracting glandular fever and later suffering a blood clot on her lung in 2017. She subsequently missed two seasons on the track, and struggled to regain her form, missing most of her under-23 years on the track.

Barker made a successful return at the UCI Track World Cup in Paris at the end of 2018, taking silver in the scratch race. She also took gold in the Madison with Jessica Roberts and silver in the team pursuit, alongside Roberts, Jenny Holl and Josie Knight, at the European Games in Minsk, Belarus, in 2019.

While she didn’t make the squad for the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Barker continued to develop her track riding and moved into the team pursuit squad for the 2021 UCI World Championships in Roubaix, France winning a bronze medal alongside Knight, Katie Archibald, and Neah Evans. The team went one better the following year in Paris, winning the silver medal behind the Italians at the UCI Track World Championships in Paris, with the addition of Anna Morris to the squad.

In the build-up to an Olympic year in 2024, the team pursuit squad of Archibald, Barker, Evans, Roberts and Knight took another step up in 2023, taking gold in the UCI Track Nations Cup in Milton, Canada, before their biggest achievement to date as a team – winning the gold medal and rainbow jersey at the 2023 UCI World Championships in Glasgow – the first time a British team has taken the title in nine years.

Early 2024 saw Meg and the team pursuit squad deliver strong results as they worked towards the summer’s Olympic Games. A silver medal at the UEC European Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, alongside Josie Knight, Meg Jess Roberts, Neah Evans, and Anna Morris was the first success of the year. A team pursuit silver medal followed at the first Track Nations Cup in Adelaide, before the gold medal came at the final Track Nations Cup of the year in Milton, Canada.

Narrowly missing out on Olympic selection, Barker rejoined the team pursuit line up of Katie Archibald, Jess Roberts, Anna Morris and Josie Knight to defend their world title at the 2024 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.

Racing in the rainbow jerseys of world champion, the team have marked themselves out as the ones to beat at the Olympics in Paris, and so far in 2024 they have continued to achieve, with silver medals at the UEC European Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, and the UCI Track Nations Cup in Adelaide, Australia. 

On the road, Barker has also had success through her career. Riding for Team Breeze alongside current Great Britain track teammate Jessica Roberts, Barker won the youth classification in the Rás na mBan in 2018, and in the covid-hit year of 2020, Barker signed for the CAMS-Basso (then CAMS Tifosi) team and began racing for them in 2021. 2022 saw her win a round of the Tour Series in Galashiels, and the following year, Barker became a national champion, winning the National Criterium Championship in Redcar. In 2024, Barker joined the Tekkerz team.

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