Great Britain squad named for track worlds
by British Cycling's Road and Track correspondent Larry Hickmott
(March 8, 2005)A team of 15 riders has been selected to travel to the World Track Championships in Los Angeles starting on the 24th of March (subject to no fitness/health issues arising in the next few weeks). After a successful Olympics and World Cup campaign, the team now fuelled by Science in Sport energy products, have qualified places in every event, the most spots (25) for any country in the list of 33 countries named by the UCI as riding the 2005 Worlds. The GB team certainly have a lot to live up to after two Gold medals at the last Olympics and two Gold at the 2004 World Track Championships in Australia. The squad however is packed with proven medal winners including the two defending champions from 2004, Chris Hoy(Kilometre) and Jamie Staff (Kierin).
Young Guns Taking on the World
At this point in time, selections for specific events are still ongoing with some being made here and others to be made in LA. The team still have until the 14th to make their entry for the Worlds which is why a number of the team are flying out on the 11th for any selection issues to be settled in training at the LA track.
What we do know though is that there are some exciting new names in the squad, with four riders travelling to the senior World Track Championships for the first time as GB start to lay the foundations for the 2008 Olympics. Under 23 Academy riders Mark Cavendish and Ed Clancy who recently did their country proud at the Sydney World Cup along with the other riders from that team, get their chance to taste the World Championships atmosphere for the first time but both, if selected for a ride which appears likely, will be I expect riding different events.
Ed Clancy has shown a lot of promise in the Pursuit and Team Pursuit winning silver in both at the Sydney World Track Cup and he's selected as part of the Team Pursuit squad as he was for the Manchester World Cup. I fully expect his form in training will be closely watched and if he shows he has the legs to add something to the teams quest for Gold, he may well get a ride as head coach Simon Jones has shown he isn't afraid to make changes when he feels it will benefit the team.
Ed has certainly got the familiar build of the team pursuiter and it's a similar situation to the Olympics in 2000 when a young 19 year old Bradley Wiggins was brought in to the team pursuit and he went on to not only ride but win a Bronze medal. Clancy though may also get a ride in the Individual Pursuit depending on how team selections go for the Team Pursuit and it will most certainly be a memorable occasion for the young rider who has shown a great deal of enthusiasm to be where he is right now in the World of cycling.
Mark Cavendish meanwhile is the top Great Britain UCI ranked rider in the Madison and may well get a chance in that event with someone like Rob Hayles who won a Bronze at the last Olympics. Qualification rules dictate a lot of what the countries can do in regard of selection with available places having to go to riders who are in the UCI rankings and even then, there are even more regulations such as only being able to pick certain top riders from those available.
Another event which may well suit the pocket rocket is the Scratch race. The Points will most certainly be Chris Newton's event but 'Cav' may well be unleashed for the Scratch race on day 4 in LA.
In the sprint events, European Junior champion Matthew Crampton is selected to travel and it appears that of all the events he may get a chance in, the Sprint and Keirin would be the favourites. In the Sprint, the country has qualified three places and with Crampton being the second ranked Britain in the UCI rankings behind 4th ranked Ross Edgar and just ahead of Jamie Staff (28th), it's looking good for the European junior champion to get his chance of some experience against the best which will stand him in good stead for the future.
In the Keirin, Matthew is ranked 28th and with GB qualifying two places, Matthew may get a chance depending on how Jamie Staff and Ross Edgar are used for the other events. I'm sure just as his first World Cup, Moscow, was a memorable experience, Los Angeles too will be a steep learning curve for the young sprinter who will give it his all to go as far as he can in whatever competitions he is asked to ride in.
The fourth member of the 'rookie' brigade is Nikki Harris, who performed so well in her one and only World Track Cup in Manchester. Should Nikki be selected for an event at the Worlds, it will probably be between the Points and Scratch race if not both. At Manchester, Nikki went oh so close to qualifying for the final of the Points race after some very good sprinting but missed out by a point. She managed a lot better in the Scratch race however and her fifth place in that final shows she has a lot of potential and at her age, the experience of riding the Worlds will be invaluable.
Tried and Tested Stars Get Ready for Another Worlds
The rest of the squad is made up of riders who have all medalled or come ever so close to winning a medal. Familiar faces for the sprint events include Ross Edgar, Chris Hoy, Craig MacLean, Jason Queally (pictured right), and Jamie Staff. Two of them in LA will be defending champions, Hoy and Staff, and its expected that Chris Hoy will be lining up to defend his Kilometre title with Jason Queally probably being the second GB rider in that event.
Queally is ranked fourth in the World whilst Hoy is ranked number one and it would be quite something to have Great Britain's Olympic champions from the last two Olympics racing in the same event. The Sydney Olympic Champion is at the moment in an important phase of his training and was even busy on Saturday before the start of the Revolution 8 meeting, getting in some track time with Sprint coach Iain Dyer. In talking to Jason, he was playing down his chances in LA against Chris preferring to talk about the big goal of the Commonwealth Games but with Jason showing quite a bullish attitude to his training, there is little doubt that the Worlds is definitely a big goal for him. A stepping stone to renewed glory perhaps.
Chris Hoy meanwhile, is as ever, looking in great form and his performance at the Manchester World Cup in January showed he is likely to go into the race as a favourite but the competition from the likes of Theo Bos (Holland) who did a sensational ride in the Los Angeles World Track Cup and Ben Kersten (Australia) means the title is going to be an exciting tussle just like the one at the last Olympics. There are probably half a dozen riders capable of winning the race in a competition that is one of the most exciting and thrilling to witness. And two of those are from Great Britain!
The other big big event for the GB sprinters is the Team Sprint. In 2002 they won the World Championships after winning a silver at the Sydney Olympics and they have medalled every year since Sydney except for the one that really mattered to them all -- Athens. They set a British record in the first round there but walked away empty handed and the hunger they must feel to make up for that we can only start to imagine. The Team Sprint, is I understand from the schedule, now going to be two rounds instead of three so I'm guessing that the three riders in the best form in LA will be doing both rounds instead of the squad of four being used as in previous years. Many of the sprint team are heading to LA earlier than the rest of the squad where I expect the fine tuning of who will ride for the Team Sprint title will be decided.
An unknown in that equation is how LA based Jamie Staff, part of the World Championship winning team in 2002, will fit into the squad after not having raced with it since Athens. The Keirin champion was injured in the gym late last year, an injury that has kept him out of the World Cups because of it and his events will no doubt be decided when the team get together for the first time since Athens in LA.
The final male sprinter named in the squad is Ross Edgar who recently set a PB in the gym and was looking quite sharp at Revolution 8, winning the Invitation Keirin and giving Jens Fiedler a good run in the sprint semi-final. Ross is currently ranked 4th in the World for the sprint and its looking likely he'll be riding that event after a superb 5th place in the Olympics. In Athens, it took the current World Champion Theo Bos to stop Ross getting through to a final to race for a medal but the youngster is continuing to progress and LA may well be the time and place he picks up his first World Championship medal.
LA will also see the squads only female sprinter, Victoria Pendleton, looking to win her first World Championship medal. It was in LA last December that Victoria won the Womens Keirin event and at the Manchester World Cup, the girl from Stotfold won two Silver medals in the Sprint and 500 metre Time Trial. It could be in any of those events that she wins a medal in and we wish her lots of luck in her quest to take a step onto a World Championship podium for the first time. After two fourths in the Sprint event in two World Championships, her time has to surely come and soon.
Pulling together for the Elusive Gold
The endurance riders in the squad have all medaled except of course for the rookies Cavendish and Clancy. The big event for the endurance squad is the pursuit -- Team and Individual. When I last spoke to Steve Cummings, you could sense the frustration he feels in not having yet won gold after a handful of bronze and silver medals in World and Olympic competitions.
Paul Manning is a rider who is one of the Worlds top individual pursuiters, but the last time we spoke, his mind seemed set making sure this run of silver and bronze medals stops. It is probably the one event of all, where the frustration at having not yet won Gold is most telling and it will take more than just physical power to ensure the team don't blow the chance of gold through having too much hunger. Controlling that aggression from a world class foursome may well be the key and after the edge of the seat final at last year's Worlds, LA may just be the place where fortune smiles on the bridesmaids from the last five years. They will, after all, go into the event as winners of the 2004/05 UCI World Track Cup competition for the Team Pursuit and wearing the skinsuits for this may just bring them that little bit of extra luck they need to add to the great talent they all share for this event.
If the Team Pursuit is a major goal for the endurance riders, then the Individual is also one event where there will be at least one British rider looking for Gold and only Gold. Rob Hayles (pictured right), winner of a bronze in 2000 and a silver last year in this event, is really focused on this event and after his ride in Melbourne last year where he went ever so close to pulling off a sensational upset, he's certainly one of the favourites for the race in LA.
Nothing though is ever certain at this level -- an example of that being Stuttgart in 2003 when GB had three World Class riders in the Kilo and at least one medal was expected but none did so. A year later, one of those, Chris Hoy, was both World and Olympic champion showing its hard to predict events as the competition can throw up a lot of surprises but lets cross our fingers for 'our' Rob that this is HIS year.
Another possible medal event is the Men's Points. Chris Newton has made no secret of the fact that he wants those rainbow stripes back that he last held in 2002 when he was on top of the World in the Points race. Third place in the LA World Cup last December is proof if needed, that Newton has lost none of his golden touch and with a day in between the Points on day 1 and the Team Pursuit on day 3, the events should not clash as they have done so in the past. The other bunch races are the Scratch and Madison. In the Scratch race, GB may put in the Isle of Man's Mark Cavendish although this event is the day before the Madison and Cavendish is also a possible in that with Hayles.
As with previous Worlds, decisions on who rides what can change quickly depending on many factors but should 'Cav' get a ride in either event, it is certain to be a memorable occasion and with his fellow under 23 academy rider Geraint Thomas still recovering from a crash that almost certainly kept him out of the team for LA, Mark will have many reasons for fearing no-one and going for it in his normal never say die style that we have seen at so many Revolution meetings. It should not be forgotten that many great riders have come to Manchester and tried to beat his 1km madison record he holds with Ed Clancy and all have failed. Fingers crossed he finds his feet quickly in LA despite only being 18. It seems like yesterday I was watching this exciting talent win a junior road race in the Midlands and now he's on his way to the Worlds.
Finally, there are the Women's Endurance riders -- Emma Davies and Nikki Harris. Davies is another in the team who has come close to a medal, 4th, at a previous World Championship and is eager to make the step up onto the podium in the Womens Pursuit. Emma also had the Brits on their feet in Athens last summer in the Points race and it may be this event that she also contests although the Pursuit has always been her key event and one she is unchallenged at when racing at home.
Last but definitely not least, there is Nikki Harris. Her event will probably either be the Scratch or the Points, or both and at just18 years of age, being selected for the Worlds is a major compliment to her talent. Nikki has been racing for many years and has been a familiar face at cross country mountain bike races and cyclo cross events for a long time and now all of sudden, the Commonwealth Youth Games Gold medallist in the Mountain Bike event is on her way to her first senior World Championships. I am sure I join everyone in wishing her and every member of the team all the luck in the world for the World Championships. We'll have more on the team in the coming weeks.
Great Britain Squad for Los Angeles
Mark Cavendish
Ed Clancy
Matthew Crampton
Steve Cummings
Ross Edgar
Rob Hayles
Chris Hoy
Craig MacLean
Paul Manning
Chris Newton
Jason Queally
Jamie Staff
Emma Davies
Nikki Harris
Victoria Pendleton
(March 8, 2005)A team of 15 riders has been selected to travel to the World Track Championships in Los Angeles starting on the 24th of March (subject to no fitness/health issues arising in the next few weeks). After a successful Olympics and World Cup campaign, the team now fuelled by Science in Sport energy products, have qualified places in every event, the most spots (25) for any country in the list of 33 countries named by the UCI as riding the 2005 Worlds. The GB team certainly have a lot to live up to after two Gold medals at the last Olympics and two Gold at the 2004 World Track Championships in Australia. The squad however is packed with proven medal winners including the two defending champions from 2004, Chris Hoy(Kilometre) and Jamie Staff (Kierin).
Young Guns Taking on the World
At this point in time, selections for specific events are still ongoing with some being made here and others to be made in LA. The team still have until the 14th to make their entry for the Worlds which is why a number of the team are flying out on the 11th for any selection issues to be settled in training at the LA track.
What we do know though is that there are some exciting new names in the squad, with four riders travelling to the senior World Track Championships for the first time as GB start to lay the foundations for the 2008 Olympics. Under 23 Academy riders Mark Cavendish and Ed Clancy who recently did their country proud at the Sydney World Cup along with the other riders from that team, get their chance to taste the World Championships atmosphere for the first time but both, if selected for a ride which appears likely, will be I expect riding different events.
Ed Clancy has shown a lot of promise in the Pursuit and Team Pursuit winning silver in both at the Sydney World Track Cup and he's selected as part of the Team Pursuit squad as he was for the Manchester World Cup. I fully expect his form in training will be closely watched and if he shows he has the legs to add something to the teams quest for Gold, he may well get a ride as head coach Simon Jones has shown he isn't afraid to make changes when he feels it will benefit the team.
Ed has certainly got the familiar build of the team pursuiter and it's a similar situation to the Olympics in 2000 when a young 19 year old Bradley Wiggins was brought in to the team pursuit and he went on to not only ride but win a Bronze medal. Clancy though may also get a ride in the Individual Pursuit depending on how team selections go for the Team Pursuit and it will most certainly be a memorable occasion for the young rider who has shown a great deal of enthusiasm to be where he is right now in the World of cycling.
Mark Cavendish meanwhile is the top Great Britain UCI ranked rider in the Madison and may well get a chance in that event with someone like Rob Hayles who won a Bronze at the last Olympics. Qualification rules dictate a lot of what the countries can do in regard of selection with available places having to go to riders who are in the UCI rankings and even then, there are even more regulations such as only being able to pick certain top riders from those available.
Another event which may well suit the pocket rocket is the Scratch race. The Points will most certainly be Chris Newton's event but 'Cav' may well be unleashed for the Scratch race on day 4 in LA.
In the sprint events, European Junior champion Matthew Crampton is selected to travel and it appears that of all the events he may get a chance in, the Sprint and Keirin would be the favourites. In the Sprint, the country has qualified three places and with Crampton being the second ranked Britain in the UCI rankings behind 4th ranked Ross Edgar and just ahead of Jamie Staff (28th), it's looking good for the European junior champion to get his chance of some experience against the best which will stand him in good stead for the future.
In the Keirin, Matthew is ranked 28th and with GB qualifying two places, Matthew may get a chance depending on how Jamie Staff and Ross Edgar are used for the other events. I'm sure just as his first World Cup, Moscow, was a memorable experience, Los Angeles too will be a steep learning curve for the young sprinter who will give it his all to go as far as he can in whatever competitions he is asked to ride in.
The fourth member of the 'rookie' brigade is Nikki Harris, who performed so well in her one and only World Track Cup in Manchester. Should Nikki be selected for an event at the Worlds, it will probably be between the Points and Scratch race if not both. At Manchester, Nikki went oh so close to qualifying for the final of the Points race after some very good sprinting but missed out by a point. She managed a lot better in the Scratch race however and her fifth place in that final shows she has a lot of potential and at her age, the experience of riding the Worlds will be invaluable.
Tried and Tested Stars Get Ready for Another Worlds
The rest of the squad is made up of riders who have all medalled or come ever so close to winning a medal. Familiar faces for the sprint events include Ross Edgar, Chris Hoy, Craig MacLean, Jason Queally (pictured right), and Jamie Staff. Two of them in LA will be defending champions, Hoy and Staff, and its expected that Chris Hoy will be lining up to defend his Kilometre title with Jason Queally probably being the second GB rider in that event.
Queally is ranked fourth in the World whilst Hoy is ranked number one and it would be quite something to have Great Britain's Olympic champions from the last two Olympics racing in the same event. The Sydney Olympic Champion is at the moment in an important phase of his training and was even busy on Saturday before the start of the Revolution 8 meeting, getting in some track time with Sprint coach Iain Dyer. In talking to Jason, he was playing down his chances in LA against Chris preferring to talk about the big goal of the Commonwealth Games but with Jason showing quite a bullish attitude to his training, there is little doubt that the Worlds is definitely a big goal for him. A stepping stone to renewed glory perhaps.
Chris Hoy meanwhile, is as ever, looking in great form and his performance at the Manchester World Cup in January showed he is likely to go into the race as a favourite but the competition from the likes of Theo Bos (Holland) who did a sensational ride in the Los Angeles World Track Cup and Ben Kersten (Australia) means the title is going to be an exciting tussle just like the one at the last Olympics. There are probably half a dozen riders capable of winning the race in a competition that is one of the most exciting and thrilling to witness. And two of those are from Great Britain!
The other big big event for the GB sprinters is the Team Sprint. In 2002 they won the World Championships after winning a silver at the Sydney Olympics and they have medalled every year since Sydney except for the one that really mattered to them all -- Athens. They set a British record in the first round there but walked away empty handed and the hunger they must feel to make up for that we can only start to imagine. The Team Sprint, is I understand from the schedule, now going to be two rounds instead of three so I'm guessing that the three riders in the best form in LA will be doing both rounds instead of the squad of four being used as in previous years. Many of the sprint team are heading to LA earlier than the rest of the squad where I expect the fine tuning of who will ride for the Team Sprint title will be decided.
An unknown in that equation is how LA based Jamie Staff, part of the World Championship winning team in 2002, will fit into the squad after not having raced with it since Athens. The Keirin champion was injured in the gym late last year, an injury that has kept him out of the World Cups because of it and his events will no doubt be decided when the team get together for the first time since Athens in LA.
The final male sprinter named in the squad is Ross Edgar who recently set a PB in the gym and was looking quite sharp at Revolution 8, winning the Invitation Keirin and giving Jens Fiedler a good run in the sprint semi-final. Ross is currently ranked 4th in the World for the sprint and its looking likely he'll be riding that event after a superb 5th place in the Olympics. In Athens, it took the current World Champion Theo Bos to stop Ross getting through to a final to race for a medal but the youngster is continuing to progress and LA may well be the time and place he picks up his first World Championship medal.
LA will also see the squads only female sprinter, Victoria Pendleton, looking to win her first World Championship medal. It was in LA last December that Victoria won the Womens Keirin event and at the Manchester World Cup, the girl from Stotfold won two Silver medals in the Sprint and 500 metre Time Trial. It could be in any of those events that she wins a medal in and we wish her lots of luck in her quest to take a step onto a World Championship podium for the first time. After two fourths in the Sprint event in two World Championships, her time has to surely come and soon.
Pulling together for the Elusive Gold
The endurance riders in the squad have all medaled except of course for the rookies Cavendish and Clancy. The big event for the endurance squad is the pursuit -- Team and Individual. When I last spoke to Steve Cummings, you could sense the frustration he feels in not having yet won gold after a handful of bronze and silver medals in World and Olympic competitions.
Paul Manning is a rider who is one of the Worlds top individual pursuiters, but the last time we spoke, his mind seemed set making sure this run of silver and bronze medals stops. It is probably the one event of all, where the frustration at having not yet won Gold is most telling and it will take more than just physical power to ensure the team don't blow the chance of gold through having too much hunger. Controlling that aggression from a world class foursome may well be the key and after the edge of the seat final at last year's Worlds, LA may just be the place where fortune smiles on the bridesmaids from the last five years. They will, after all, go into the event as winners of the 2004/05 UCI World Track Cup competition for the Team Pursuit and wearing the skinsuits for this may just bring them that little bit of extra luck they need to add to the great talent they all share for this event.
If the Team Pursuit is a major goal for the endurance riders, then the Individual is also one event where there will be at least one British rider looking for Gold and only Gold. Rob Hayles (pictured right), winner of a bronze in 2000 and a silver last year in this event, is really focused on this event and after his ride in Melbourne last year where he went ever so close to pulling off a sensational upset, he's certainly one of the favourites for the race in LA.
Nothing though is ever certain at this level -- an example of that being Stuttgart in 2003 when GB had three World Class riders in the Kilo and at least one medal was expected but none did so. A year later, one of those, Chris Hoy, was both World and Olympic champion showing its hard to predict events as the competition can throw up a lot of surprises but lets cross our fingers for 'our' Rob that this is HIS year.
Another possible medal event is the Men's Points. Chris Newton has made no secret of the fact that he wants those rainbow stripes back that he last held in 2002 when he was on top of the World in the Points race. Third place in the LA World Cup last December is proof if needed, that Newton has lost none of his golden touch and with a day in between the Points on day 1 and the Team Pursuit on day 3, the events should not clash as they have done so in the past. The other bunch races are the Scratch and Madison. In the Scratch race, GB may put in the Isle of Man's Mark Cavendish although this event is the day before the Madison and Cavendish is also a possible in that with Hayles.
As with previous Worlds, decisions on who rides what can change quickly depending on many factors but should 'Cav' get a ride in either event, it is certain to be a memorable occasion and with his fellow under 23 academy rider Geraint Thomas still recovering from a crash that almost certainly kept him out of the team for LA, Mark will have many reasons for fearing no-one and going for it in his normal never say die style that we have seen at so many Revolution meetings. It should not be forgotten that many great riders have come to Manchester and tried to beat his 1km madison record he holds with Ed Clancy and all have failed. Fingers crossed he finds his feet quickly in LA despite only being 18. It seems like yesterday I was watching this exciting talent win a junior road race in the Midlands and now he's on his way to the Worlds.
Finally, there are the Women's Endurance riders -- Emma Davies and Nikki Harris. Davies is another in the team who has come close to a medal, 4th, at a previous World Championship and is eager to make the step up onto the podium in the Womens Pursuit. Emma also had the Brits on their feet in Athens last summer in the Points race and it may be this event that she also contests although the Pursuit has always been her key event and one she is unchallenged at when racing at home.
Last but definitely not least, there is Nikki Harris. Her event will probably either be the Scratch or the Points, or both and at just18 years of age, being selected for the Worlds is a major compliment to her talent. Nikki has been racing for many years and has been a familiar face at cross country mountain bike races and cyclo cross events for a long time and now all of sudden, the Commonwealth Youth Games Gold medallist in the Mountain Bike event is on her way to her first senior World Championships. I am sure I join everyone in wishing her and every member of the team all the luck in the world for the World Championships. We'll have more on the team in the coming weeks.
Great Britain Squad for Los Angeles
Mark Cavendish
Ed Clancy
Matthew Crampton
Steve Cummings
Ross Edgar
Rob Hayles
Chris Hoy
Craig MacLean
Paul Manning
Chris Newton
Jason Queally
Jamie Staff
Emma Davies
Nikki Harris
Victoria Pendleton
This Article Published March 8, 2005 For more information contact:
