AN Olympic silver medal has convinced Charlie Tanfield it was worth sticking with cycling.

The 27-year-old from Great Ayton was weighing up his future in the sport after a testing debut in Tokyo, when he came into the team pursuit quartet at short notice following the mid-games retirement of Yorkshire cycling legend Ed Clancy.

Tanfield crashed out as Britain were beaten by Denmark and finished seventh but three years on he has been at the heart of a revival which has returned a previously all-conquering Team GB squad to the podium.

The Yorkshireman was joined by Wakefield’s Ollie Wood, Dan Bigham, Ethan Vernon and Ethan Hayter for a Paris campaign which culminated in a thrilling gold medal race against Australia on Wednesday evening.

BASCK IN THE GAME: Yorkshire's Charlie Tanfield pictured during the Men's Team Pursuit at the National Velodrome in Paris this week. Picture: David Davies/PA

Tanfield and his team-mates were in touch, just two-hundredths of a second adrift with a lap and a half to go, before Hayter slipped from the saddle when his ‘arms went weak’.

“He did an amazing ride and there’s no way around it, he had a lot of the load there,” Tanfield said.

“He can still be proud of what he has done. He did an unbelievable amount of turns on the front and that’s a really special performance in itself.

“He can’t be down about that. We had to put it on the line and it’s one of those things.”

CLOSE-RUN THING: Charlie Tanfield (centre), pictured with GB team pursuit team-mates Ollie Wood (left), Ethan Vernon, Ethan Hayter and Daniel Bingham pose with their silver medals after Wednesday night's thrilling final against Australia. Picture: David Davies/PA

As for his own personal turnaround in fortunes, Tanfield added: “Tokyo was a low point in my career and it was really difficult for me to carry on in the sport after that.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do afterwards. I’m really glad I tried and kept on going.

“It has been a really long journey to even make it back into the squad again. These guys won World Champs and I wasn’t there.

“It has been a battle and I’m glad I could even make the start line, let alone do the race. A silver medal, for me, is great.

“I’d be lying if I said we weren’t in for gold. With our performances this year, we should have been aiming for gold.

“We were aiming for that and kudos to the Australians, they did so well. We were close but just fell short a little bit.”

Wood also collected a medal having raced in the qualifying and first round stages before being replaced in the final by Dan Bigham.

National Lottery players raise more than £30m a week for Good Causes including vital funding into sport – from grassroots to elite. To find out more visit: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk

Charlie Tanfield relieved he stuck with team pursuit dream after Tokyo nightmare is eclipsed by Paris silver