Sophie Capewell believes that a recent surge in talent could produce the most exciting team sprint challenge yet at Glasgow 2026.

Track cyclist Capewell, 26, made her Commonwealth Games debut at Birmingham 2022, winning silver and bronze, and has gone on to clinch European, world and Olympic team sprint gold, alongside teammates Katy Marchant and Emma Finucane.

But where she has found comfort in a familiar set up, there is change just around the corner.

Capewell will see new teammates at the upcoming Commonwealth Games, with Finucane set to don the Welsh lycra.

The Welshwoman is just one of many elite track sprinters spread across the home nations, with Lowri Thomas also Welsh and Lauren Bell Scottish.

With an incredible surge of surge talent emerging onto the international stage this season - Bell teamed up with Wales's Rhian Edmunds and England's Rhianna Parris-Smith to win European silver in February - the whole British team is likely to go head-to-head on the start line in Glasgow.

It is a challenge that Capewell is relishing, with the competition even tastier against her close friends and training partners.

"It's very odd because team sprint is everything for us when we compete as Britain," she said. "That's how we qualify for the Olympics and what we compete at during worlds and Europeans.

"So to then change the teams is so much fun.

"It means we get a lot of development athletes racing up with us which is exciting.

"We've had a massive surge of talent after last year and it has catapulted our squad through the roof and so I think we're going to have really competitive home nations teams next year."

Capewell was inspired to take up cycling after watching her father, two-time Paralympian Nigel Capewell, coach at their local cycling club.

And the second she got the sprinting bug, she never stopped.

"You kind of get addicted to the speed on the track and I always had a natural affinity to sprinting and going fast," she said.

"I knew if I made it to the end of the race, I had a good chance of winning, it was just making it to the end of the race that was the hard part.

"I fell in love with track cycling and sprinting from there and never looked back."

Falling in love with the velodrome led to a first major multi-sport Games at Birmingham 2022, having narrowly missed out being part of the pride on the Gold Coast.

Despite the track events taking part at the London velodrome, rather than in the host city of Birmingham, Capewell admitted that the atmosphere and energy of the Games was unlike anything she had ever experience.

With the roaring cheer on her sprint qualifying effort still echoing in her ears.

"This was a proper Games and proper team ethos," she said. "I knew I was part of something really big which was really exciting.

"There are not a lot of competitions where you can hear them shouting for you whilst doing the effort but I vividly remember the day we had the sprint, I was doing my flying 200m for qualifying and as soon as I crossed the 100m I just heard the crowd absolutely roar.

"In my head, I knew I was either nearly fastest or fastest at that point and I know we always speak about that extra push of having a home crowd but that was next level for me."

Capewell came away from her first Commonwealth Games with two medals.

Having finished fifth in the team sprint, before a tough fourth place in the individual sprint, she added 500m time trial bronze and Keirin silver to her CV.

A perfect, five, four, three, two record that has since left her thinking: "If only I had one more race, then I could have got gold!"

And it is that missing gold that Capewell is dreaming of ahead of a potential second Games at Glasgow 2026, admitting, with vigour, that she has ambitions to return to the Commonwealth stage next summer and finish the job.

"I really want to go and I'm so happy the event is still going," she said.

"The Commonwealth Games is that friendly games and it holds a lot of prestige and pride.

"That elusive gold is still on my mind."