MATTHEW Rotherham has made a habit of winning gold medals of late and it’s a knack he never wants to lose.

The para-cycling pilot from Bolton won two gold medals at last month’s recent World Championships in Rio and backed those performances up with two more gold medals on his Commonwealth Games debut – this time throwing a world record in for good measure.

Deane rider Rotherham, racing for Scotland and piloting visually impaired cyclist Neil Fachie, won the tandem sprint and kilometre time trial in Brisbane.

Having already taken the kilo on Thursday, Rotherham and Fachie returned to the Anna Meares Velodrome on Saturday and created their own slice of history.

Fachie already held the flying 200m world record, set at altitude in 2014, with a time of 9.711s.

But he and Rotherham smashed that mark, this time at sea level, with an effort of 9.568secs to qualify fastest.

They went on to ease to victory, winning both their semi-final and final in straight rides to claim their second gold medal of the week.

“I’ve built a reputation for the big gears and we put a big gear on for qualifying and hoofed it round and obviously got the result,” the former Canon Slade pupil said.

“But we do train hard, really, really, hard and the results speak for themselves.

“We’ve done really well and who knows, we could keep pushing those boundaries now.

“Any race is hard, obviously. Those sprints were hard, the kilo is hard. But the training helps us with that.

"It helps us to deal with repeated efforts. Whilst we’re pretty knackered now, you recover and we’re definitely getting better at that.”

Rotherham also rides solo in able-bodied competitions, such as Six Day London, where he has gained a reputation for being somewhat of a showman.

And he is hopeful that, even with the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games on the horizon, he can still mix the two together.

“While the tandem is my main thing, I do enjoy the individual stuff and as long as it doesn’t take away from the tandem training then the team are happy for me to still stick with the Six Day things,” he added.

“At the end of the day it’s what I love. I love racing. I said to Neil ‘this is what we live for’, and it’s so true.

“I just want to race. I enjoy training, yeah, but racing is where it’s at.”

And Rotherham’s was not the only success for Bolton riders, with Breightmet's Chris Latham picking up scratch race bronze on his Commonwealth Games debut.

The 24-year-old sprinted to a medal in a crazy finish to Saturday’s race that saw fellow Englishman Ethan Hayter caught and passed with just 20m to go, eventually finishing fifth in an English three-four-five.

“On my Commonwealth Games race debut I’m absolutely buzzing with the medal and the way the race went – I get a little teddy now, too!” the former Withins High School pupil said of the mascot each medallist receives.

Latham went on to finish fifth in yesterday’s points race and will ride the road race on Saturday.

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