Career as engineer 'has impact on Olympic team'

Dan Bigham was at the Tokyo Olympics as a performance engineer for Denmark, but has won silver as a competitor in Paris

Olympic silver medallist Dan Bigham has said he put his parallel career as an engineer to use, as Great Britain won the medal in the men's team pursuit cycling final.

Bigham, from Stone in Staffordshire, Ethan Hayter, Charlie Tanfield and Ethan Vernon were pipped to gold by Australia at the Paris games.

He had previously been at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, not as a rider but as a performance engineer for Denmark.

Bigham balances his on-track commitments with his engineering role at road cycling team Ineos Grenadiers, and said he wanted to champion his dual career.

He said: "I was an engineer there [in Tokyo] and here [in Paris] I'm a rider.

"It's not to say that I haven't had an engineering input with what we've been doing and that's a key part of who I am."

'Big asset'

Bigham added he had been working full-time as an engineer, which was something he was proud of.

"It's something to say that you can do both and that that can be a big asset.

"It can be an extra string to your bow, and it's brought a huge amount of performance to myself and I believe to the team at the same time."

He stated he thought it was something people should strive for and "not just accept that you can just be an athlete, that you can be a rider, you can be an engineer".

Bigham added: "It can be a productive thing to do them together."

The Tokyo champions Italy took bronze behind Australia and Britain, beating the Danes to take the final place on the podium.