By Paul Martin in Paris

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 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 Dan Bigham, Ethan Vernon and Ethan Hayter for a thrilling gold medal race against an Australian team who had beaten the world record in the first round.

Tanfield and his teammates 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.”

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.”

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

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