IT illustrates quite how talented Isla Short is that at the tail-end of 2016 she became Scottish Champion in what she openly admits is her second discipline.

Short is primarily a mountain biker, but to split up the winter she dips her toe into cyclo-cross.

However, despite her priorities lying in mountain biking, she has proven to have something of a natural talent for cyclo-cross and last month the 20-year-old became Scottish cyclo-cross champion for the second time.

The winter season is almost over but Short isn’t quite finished just yet with the rider from Peebleshire competing in the British Cyclo-Cross Championships in Yorkshire this weekend.

Short may have limited experience on the British scene when it comes to cyclo-cross but this hasn’t lowered her expectations this weekend.

“I’m excited about racing and it’ll be good to see how I can do,” she says. “My target is to get on the podium in the under-23 category.

“Cyclo-cross really helps my mountain biking so it’s definitely good for me to do it over the winter – it’s really good for my fitness and also I love the being a part of the cyclo-cross community.”

That Short is able to turn her hand to any discipline should come of little surprise when you consider what a precocious talent she has shown herself to be on a mountain bike.

She was a casual bike rider from a young age, going on cycling holidays with her family but it wasn’t until the age of 13 that, persuaded by her father, she did her first race.

She was not eased into the competitive arena though; she and her dad took part in a 10-hour endurance race through the night, although she admits that he did the bulk of the laps.

It was a good start to her racing career though – Short and her father claimed victory and that maiden win encouraged her to continue.

A year later, at the age of 14, she began mountain biking which, in comparison to many of her peers, is relatively late, a fact that Short was acutely aware of until recently.

“Because I started late, I had a lot of catch-up work to do,” she says.

“Until a year or two ago, I was always behind technically but I worked really hard on it and I’ve now got to a place where I’m good enough. I still feel like I’ve got loads of room for improvement though.

“So much of mountain biking is about experience and so sometimes it can be frustrating because I feel like I can’t do anything more to get better. But I just need to be patient and wait for the consistency to come.”

Short may have made rapid progress in the six years that she has been a competitive mountain biker but her journey has been far from smooth.

In the past few years, Short has crashed and fractured her spine not once, but twice and she admits that even tougher than the physical battle to regain fitness was the mental battle to get back to 100 per cent.

“The first time I got injured was definitely the worst because there were so many unknowns for me,” she says.

“Mentally, it took me a long time to get over it. And then when it happened again I couldn’t believe it but in a funny way, I knew that it would be OK because I’d been in this place before and recovered and so I got over that second injury a lot quicker.”

Her comeback wasn’t all plain sailing though, with Short admitting doubts crept into her mind.

“I struggled to be positive at some points because at times I felt so far away from my goals and my dreams,” she says.

“Having experienced what it was like to be at the top and then to have dropped so far down, it was tough.

“At certain points, it didn’t feel like it was possible to get back to where I’d been and for quite a while after my injury, I didn’t enjoy racing because I just didn’t feel fast. It was a lot of work to get back but if I hadn’t really believed in myself, I wouldn’t have got back.

“And after having had these setbacks, I’ve now proved to myself that cycling is what I really, really want to do.”

However, despite going into the 2016 season with modest ambitions, Short excelled herself and claimed three top 20 finishes in the under-23 World Cup Series and a second place in the British Championships.

Short is aware of how important it is to have a good season this year as the 2018 Commonwealth Games is now only 15 months away and the Scot is champing at the bit to make her Commonwealth debut in Australia.

“I’ve got my goals set for qualification but it’s so strange because it doesn’t feel all that long at all since Glasgow 2014,” she says. “So that’s pretty scary that it’s so close but it’s also really exciting.”