Jake Wightman: ‘I went on Zwift and I was absolutely bagged by normal athletes’

Jake Wightman says ‘the fact that it’s the Olympics in July means it could be the most important year I’ve left in my career’. Photograph: @danvernonphoto/New Balance

While the fastest athletes on the planet were deep in training for last summer’s world championships in Budapest, Jake Wightman, then the reigning 1500m champion, was undertaking an exercise in humility. It began, of all places, at his local bike shop.

“They must have been licking their lips when I walked in, because I told them I don’t know anything about bikes, but I wanted one that was all right,” he says, chuckling at the memory. “I bought all the gear and went out.”