Neah Evans is not, she freely admits herself, good at sitting still.
Which is why Scotland’s top track cyclist found it quite so hard being struck down with illness which left her not only unable to train but unable, for a prolonged period of time, to live anything like the active lifestyle to which she was accustomed.
A year ago, Evans was still basking in the success she’d achieved at the 2024 Paris Olympics, at which she won silver in the madison to add to her team pursuit silver from Tokyo 2020. But with neither racing nor training going nearly as well as she’d have expected in 2025, she realised that it was more than merely a dip in form from which she was suffering and when she was told she would have to take an indefinite break from cycling entirely, it wasn’t easy to come to terms with.
“Last year, at the beginning of last season, I was racing and it just wasn't really clicking,” Evans recalls. “So it was difficult coming to terms with not being where I should be, and then realising, 'oh, actually, there is something fundamentally wrong, and now I have to have lots of time off a bike.’
“You don't want to have lots of time off. You want to race because you've got a lovely race programme - and then you realise that that's just not going to happen.”
Evans is now well on the road to recovery. She’s resumed training and having been named in Scotland’s cycling squad for the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games this summer, has her first competitive event for months on her calendar.
Encouragingly, after the year the 34-year-old has endured, Evans is now seeing glimpses of the form that saw her pick up six European and two world titles between 2018 and 2023. And she is, finally, relieved to be feeling something close to her old self on two wheels.
“I’m still not 100 percent where I want to be but, as an athlete, you want your best the whole time, and obviously that's not been the reality,” she says.
“It's been a slow process. I'm back into what I’d call ‘proper training’, and while I’m still not quite at the level I used to be, it's started to come together, which is really nice.”
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Evans is spearheading a 17-strong Scottish team for Glasgow 2026 and is one of the most experienced and successful riders in the squad for what will be her third Commonwealth Games, with her previous two appearances at the event seeing her pick up three silver and two bronze medals.
Evans Jons the pre-selected quartet of Lauren Bell and Mark Stewart along with para-riders, Neil Fachie and Fun Graham in the Team Scotland cyclist squad and alongside these riders, who have a wealth of experience and a haul of major medals between them, are several major championship rookies, with 19-year-old endurance rider, Erin Boothman earmarked as the youngster with the most potential to really make a name for herself on the senior stage this summer. However, there is the notable absence of double Olympic champion, Katie Archibald, after the 32-year-old announced her retirement from elite cycling last month.
For Evans, her return to training has seen a subtle but important shift in her mindset as she realises she has to face the reality that she is not the hot favourite for silverware in the way she was in her two previous Commonwealth Games appearances. However, the absence of pressure, as well as a renewed sense of appreciation for her sport will, she hopes, compensate for the disruption of her training over the past year.
“It still feels pretty novel to be back on a bike. I was going to do a track session this week and it was like, 'oh, it's very long time since I've done anything like this. How do I ride the track again?’,” she says.
“I have always been pretty appreciative of and had an understanding of what a privilege it is to be a full-time athlete. If anything, my time out has enhanced that even more.
“Going into Commonwealth Games previously, I probably would have been really driven by the results whereas now, I still really care but it's a bit more about performance and executing a good race and just being able to do it.
“I would say normally I am fairly good at sticking to my processes and not being driven by the results, but that's just now magnified.”
Evans will spend the next seven weeks finalising her preparations for Glasgow 2026 and having weighed-up the positives and negatives of racing ahead of the Commonwealth Games, has settled on the answer that she’ll be best served focussing her efforts entirely on training before tapping-in to the bank of experience she’s amassed over the past decade come Games-time.
“I'm probably not going to race at all before Glasgow, so my first race back will be the Commonwealth Games, which is going to be interesting,” she says.
“I'm very much more focused on the training and though racing would have its benefits, the cost-balance isn't quite in favour of it so I’m just sticking to some good old training. So I’m hoping the weather stays good - it’s so much more fun training in the sunshine.”
