It is, it’s safe to say, far from ideal for one of Team GB’s brightest medal hopes to break their ankle just three months out from the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.
Alongside Carlin, who’s in the track sprint squad, is mountain biker Charlie Aldridge and track endurance rider, Mark Stewart, who has been named as a travelling reserve. “I’ve never actually revealed publicly what happened before now but it was at the Track Nations Cup in Canada in April - I was feeling very positive going into that event and my form was really starting to show. We won silver in team sprint and I also got a medal in the keirin so things were going really well,” he recalls.
“Things went well though - within a week and a half I was back in the gym and within two weeks, I was back on the bike. The Scot will contest three events in Paris – the team sprint, individual sprint and keirin – and having gone from the rookie of the sprint squad in Tokyo three years ago, he’s now the rider who his teammates will be looking towards for guidance in Paris.
“But the up side of being three years older is that I have more experience this time around and having been to an Olympics already, I know what to expect and the pressures that are involved,” he says.