Defending individual pursuit world champion Taylor Phinney is an automatic nomination.  In addition to defending his pursuit title, he will also contest the Omnium event in Copenhagen.

Rounding out the men’s squad will be discretionary nominees Daniel Holloway  (scratch race and Madison), Colby Pearce (Madison), and Giddeon Massie sprint and 1k time trial).

Sarah Hammer  received the only automatic nomination to the women’s squad by clocking a 3:27 to win the individual pursuit at the World Cup in Cali, Colombia earlier this season. The two-time world champion will compete for a third rainbow jersey in the individual pursuit and will also contest the Omnium and team pursuit.

Discretionary nominees Lauren Tamayo and Dotsie Bausch (both team pursuit) will  join Hammer. Also receiving a nomination to the women’s team is Shelley Evans, who is fresh off the overall win at the Women’s Tour of New Zealand. She will compete in the points race and scratch race.

A new national track series aims to rally the best of the best – tracks and racers – for a chance to be named ATRA’s National Champion. The American Track Racing Association (ATRA) National Championship Series includes 11 events across the country.

The NCS will run points races for individual overall championships for men’s, women’s and team event, as well as best overall team. Championships will be awarded for each major track discipline, including; sprint, keirin, time trial, individual pursuit, points race scratch race, miss and out, and Madison (men only).

A nationally cohesive effort to create a strong track racing series has been difficult, said Jeff Hopkins, operating manager of the East Point Velodrome Association. “Most velodromes spend the bulk of their time coordinating their own programs.”

Hopkins hopes to start a program that could run for 10 to 15 years without large corporate sponsorship.

“This is a grass-roots effort,” he said. The series “should have long-term legs if we start it this way.”

ATRA has 13 member velodromes — there are about 11 other velodromes in the country that are not members.

Schedule of events

5/22 – 5/24 Superdrome; Frisco, Texas, Matix Cup

6/11 – 6/13 NSC Blaine; Blaine, Minn., Fixed Gear Classic

6/18 Valley Preferred; Trexlertown, Pa., Festival of Speed-US 10mile

7/09 – 7/10 Dick Lane; East Point, Ga., Outback Bikes “The Omnium”

7/16 – 7/18 Alpenrose; Portland, Ore., Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge

7/23 Valley Preferred; Trexlertown, Pa., Keirin Cup

7/31 Encino; Encino, Calif., Far West Championships

8/14 Alpenrose; Portland, Ore., Alpenrose Heartbreaker

8/21 – 8/22 Hellyer ; San Jose, Calif., CA State Championships

9/10 – 9/11 Dick Lane; East Point, Ga., Thomsen, LTD. “The Madison”

9/17 – 9/19 Superdrome; Frisco, Texas, Elite Nationals Qualifiler

“I am so excited, I was sick last week, so I was a little bit nervous coming in not knowing how I was going to pull up, but I couldn’t be happier,” said a glowing Goss. “Women’s track cycling in Australia has certainly stepped up and the standard we have here is world class, so to win here tonight, I am really happy.”

In a dominant display Goss secured points in all but two of the ten sprints contested in the 100 lap race. She had the gold medal wrapped up 19 laps from home ended the race with 22 points, six ahead of reigning omnium World Champion, Josephine Tomic on 16 points. Six time junior World Champion, Megan Dunn, lined up for the first time in an elite points race at an Australian Championships and her debut was impressive. The 18 year old from Dubbo returned last week from the Beijing World Cup round where in her elite debut she won the points race. Tonight in Adelaide the gutsy teenager overcame a mid race crash to recover and ride home with 14 points for the bronze medal.

“It was a fantastic ride by Belinda and Josephine, but I am disappointed with a few mistakes on my behalf, but you live and learn and at the end of the day it is just another bike race,” said Dunn. “The fall did happen, and I missed out on a sprint, but it is what it is and you can’t say what if.

“The points is my main event and what I was focused on, so I will be putting everything into the scratch race now with lots of motivation after tonight’s result.”

In her return to the track, 2004 Australian points race Champion and now established road professional Alexis Rhodes (SA) launched three attacks during the race in a bid to gain points but was unable to hold off her rivals who kept her to 11 points and a fourth place finish.

Earlier in the night Canberra’s Daniel Ellis won his first senior individual Australian Championship claiming the gold medal in the men’s sprint.

“It feels great, to come out here with the training our whole group has had, to come out with the win, it is a perfect lead up to the World Championships in March,” said Ellis who claimed silver in the team sprint and bronze in the keirin at the recent Beijing round of the World Cup Series.

Ellis posted the fastest qualifying time yesterday of 10.266sec and cruised through the rounds to a gold medal showdown with Perth’s Scott Sunderland. The pair are usually on the same team in Team Jayco colours in the team sprint but in tonight’s final it was all business.

“It hurt, it hurt a lot, but being up against Scotty, one of my teammates, we know how to ride each other, so it made it a little bit easier,” explained Ellis. “First individual gold medal at an Australian Championships, it is a great feeling, to come out with the green and gold jersey, it is excellent.”

Ellis powered around Sunderland in the first of their best of three heats to clear away for a win but in the second heat the pair played cat and mouse in the final lap until Ellis jumped with 200m to go. Sunderland challenged but it was Ellis who crossed first to clinch the gold medal.

Defending champion, Shane Perkins, was forced to withdraw from the Championships last week with a bulging disc in his back opening the way for the 2009 silver medalist to claim the crown.

“It would have been nice to have Perko around, to have a rematch from last year, but I will just have to wait and see come the World Championships,” he said. “It is a big boost for my confidence, even with just the time of 10.2 (qualifying), it should qualify me up in the top seven at the World Championships.

“To go faster than that would be great, but to get that extra speed is a whole process between now and worlds, and as we are in a building block in training, it can only get better from here.”

Canberra’s Alex Bird was awarded the bronze medal after Victoria’s Jason Niblett, the second fastest qualifier, was forced to withdraw due to illness prior to his scheduled semi-final match up against Sunderland.

A consistent performance by Tasmania’s Amy Cure saw her collect her second gold medal of the Championships as she rode to victory in the Under 19 women’s points race.

Cure, who claimed gold in the 2km individual pursuit last night, collected points in all eight sprints, taking a maximum five points three times, to finish on 24 points.

“I just wanted to try and get points in each sprint as I knew the West Australian girls had a strong team and I had to keep an eye on them,” said the seventeen-year-old. “Once I was out in front early in the race, I was just trying to keep calm and keep up in the sprints.”

West Australia’s Isabella King took the silver medal on 20 points, with South Australia’s Letitia Custance powering home to take the final sprint points and the bronze medal with a final tally of 13 points.
After yesterday’s record breaking day in the pursuit, more records tumbled in this afternoon’s sprint qualifying.

New South Wales’ Kaarle McCulloch set a new Championship record in the women’s sprint qualifying with a time of 11.383sec for the flying 200m, beating the mark set by Anna Meares in 2007 of 11.390.

With Meares and fellow Queenslander Emily Rosemond absent from the Championships, McCulloch, who with Meares is the reigning team sprint World Champion, was anxious for a good performance.

“There is obviously a little bit of honor to uphold here and I have put a little bit of pressure on myself too, but I really wanted to come out here and stamp my authority and put a good time on the board which I did, so I am very happy,” said McCulloch.

South Australia’s Matthew Glaetzer set a new Australian record in the U19 qualifying with a time of 10.410, breaking Scott Sunderland’s record of 10.452 and erasing the Australian Championship record of 10.590 set by Sydney’s Ben Kersten in 1999.

West Australian Holly Williams clocked 11.782 in the U19 women’s sprint qualifying to break the Championship record of 11.840 set by Victorian Rahna Demarte in 1999.

The finals of all three events will be held on Thursday.

Bobridge, who will race on the road for Garmin this season, posted a stunning time of 4:14.427 on his way to qualifying for the gold medal ride-off.

The world record for the 16-lap event is held by Britain’s Chris Boardman, who clocked 4:11.114 on his way to the world title in Manchester in 1996 after setting a qualifying time of 4:13.353.

However both of Boardman’s times were set using an aerodynamic stretched position ─ known as the “Superman position” ─ that has since been banned by the UCI.

Now the fastest man in the world under current rules, Bobridge’s ride knocked 0.6 second off the time set by Welsh cyclist Gerraint Thomas at the Manchester round of the World Cup last year.

His time was also faster than the Olympic record set by Britain’s reigning Olympic Champion Bradley Wiggins in Beijing.

Bobridge went on to win the final against the equally impressive Rohan Dennis, 19, an achievement the 20-year-old said was down to his decision not to go full gas at the Tour Down Under road race last week.

“This year at the Tour Down Under, I held myself back a lot and came out here a lot fresher as I have shown that with my times I have produced here,” said Bobridge.

“Honestly I don’t think I am 100-percent fit yet, still a little bit off, which is a good feeling for myself, knowing I have six, seven weeks until the world championships in Copenhagen.”

This year’s world track cycling championships will be held on the Ballerup velodrome, just outside Copenhagen.

Bobridge will likely face stiff competition from the Danish hosts, Britain and the American who beat him to the world gold last year, Taylor Phinney.

However Bobridge hinted there is plenty more to come.

“Considering I have only done three sessions on the track leading into these Championships, I have come out today and surprised myself.”

Hammer in the 3000-meter Individual Pursuit final in Colombia last month. AFP PHOTO/Luis ROBAYO

Track racer Sarah Hammer and biathlete Tim Burke were named Athletes of the Month by the U.S Olympic Committee for December.

Hammer collected gold and silver medals at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Cali, Colombia, and also clocked the third-fastest women’s time in history in the 3km individual pursuit.

The Munich Six has plenty of history ... but fewer and fewer fans.

“We could not find a way of bringing this event back on track,” said organizer Ralph Huber. “And we could not find another agency to take on the event in 2010, so the decision is final.”

The Munich Six – generally held in November – began in 1933 and has faced cancellation before. 2010 would have been the 46th edition of the race.

In 2009, 52,000 fans visited Munich’s indoor Olympic velodrome for the event, 12,000 fewer than what organizers had predicted and 8,500 fewer than attended the 2008 edition.

British cycling great Chris Hoy is ready to abandon the defense of some of his Olympic titles at the 2012 London Games ifit increases his chances of adding to his gold medal collection.

Hoy was one of the stars of the Beijing Games where he added three gold medals, from the sprint, keirin and team sprint, to the gold he won in the kilometer at the Athens Games in 2004.

Now one short of rowing legend Steve Redgrave’s British record of five gold medals, Hoy admits however he took a risk last year in Beijing by competing in three events as he could have ended up with nothing.

London is likely to be the 33-year-old Scot’s Olympic swansong and while he would like to defend all three of his Beijing titles he will not do so unless he is sure he is on course for another winning treble.

“It’s a risk and something you have to be aware of but I wouldn’t be entering a race unless I had the belief I was going to win it,” Hoy said at a sponsor’s event on Tuesday.

“It’s still quite a long time to the Olympics and anything can happen.

“At the moment, I plan to go for all three and it’d be lovely to defend all three titles but I wouldn’t risk losing a gold medal for the sake of having three bronzes or three silvers.

“It’s about winning gold medals and I’d rather have one gold medal than three silvers.”

Alterations to the track program means Great Britain’s Victoria Pendleton will have the chance to emulate Hoy’s Beijing treble in London. Last year Pendleton won the only race in which she was entered, the sprint.

But in a bid to ensure gender equality in 2012, cycling chiefs have added a women’s team sprint and keirin to the programme.

“It’s great news for Vicky,” said Hoy. “It’s going to give her the chance to go for three events.”

He added: “It’s something she’s been outspoken about and quite rightly so, to try and get the parity between men and women.”

But the process of levelling up the Olympic program has, from a British perspective, been negative with both the men’s and women’s individual pursuits scrapped.

Bradley Wiggins and Steven Burke won gold and bronze in the men’s individual pursuit in Beijing with Rebecca Romero and Wendy Houvenhagel taking gold and silver in the women’s equivalent.

Hoy, who admitted after his Beijing success that the scrapping of the kilometre after Athens had forced him to focus on track’s sprint events, said: “There’s plusses and negatives.

“I can really empathise with people like Rebecca Romero, Bradley Wiggins, Steven Burke, Wendy Houvenaghel, Olympic medallists in events which are not going to be there in two-and-a half-years’ time.

“When my event, the kilo, was dropped from the program in Beijing it was devastating.

“More than anything, it’s the timing of it, you don’t get a full Olympic cycle to change your plans and prepare.

“It’s frustrating for a lot of riders but I think it’s been done for a positive reason and that’s to get parity between men and women.”

Hammer’s time not only established a new national record, but also represents the third fastest 3000-meter pursuit ever ridden, trailing only higher marks established at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Hammer defeated Canada’s Tara Whitten in the gold-medal round. Whitten, however, got her revenge in the team pursuit, when she, Stephanie Roorda and Laura Brown teamed up to beat the U.S. team in that gold medal final.

Hammer joined forces with Dotsie Bausch (Jazz Apple-Champion Systems) and Lauren Tamayo (TIBCO) to take silver. In qualifying, the American trio bested their previous national record of 3:31 by three seconds. Then in the final, they broke their record again, clocking a 3:28.4. The Canadians, however, turned in a 3:27.289.

Lithuania defeated Cuba for the bronze medal.

10 December 2009
Change to the Olympic track programme

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) today confirmed the new track programme which was proposed by the UCI for the XXX Olympic Games in London 2012.

In its report to the IOC after the Beijing Olympic Games, the UCI had requested that 2 extra track events for women be added to the programme in order to increase women participation in the track and indeed to give a more meaningful number of events for women to compete in.

The IOC turned down this request and in August 2009 informed the UCI that whilst it had a clear policy of gender equity within the Olympic programme, and as such supported expanding the female track programme, it could not increase the total number of medals awarded for cycling events at the Olympic Games (currently 18 gold medals) nor the number of athletes (500).

As a result, the UCI needed to undertake an in-depth evaluation of the overall situation.

As the UCI’s priority is to maintain the Olympic status of each of its disciplines that currently feature in the Games programme (road, track, mountain bike, BMX), and in view of the fact that the IOC will undertake a complete review of the Olympic programme in 2013, it is clear that this exercise was extremely important for the future of our sport.

Based on this conviction, the UCI therefore drew up a proposal to modify the track events programme at the London Olympic Games taking into account both its desire to:

preserve the technical heritage and history of the different specialties;
develop the discipline on an international scale using the visibility and popularity gained at the Olympics.

As a result of this reflection, the UCI Management Committee – the body responsible for taking such decisions – unanimously accepted the following solution to be proposed to the IOC to consider for the 2012 Olympic Games:

Track Programme (men – women)

individual sprint
keirin
team sprint
team pursuit
omnium

As a result, the new programme includes five events for men and five for women, which allows track cycling to retain the same number of medals.

The sprint (individual and team), the keirin and the team pursuit already feature in the men’s competition programme at the Olympic Games: the individual pursuit, points race and madison will not be held in London, where an Olympic title will be awarded for the omnium, a multi-discipline event, like the decathlon in athletics, which has a long tradition in track cycling. At the same time, the women’s programme sees the addition of the team sprint, team pursuit, keirin and omnium to the individual sprint, while the individual pursuit and points race will not be held.

The omnium at the World Championships comprises the following events:

individual sprint, 200 metres
1km – 500 metres time trial (men – women)
individual pursuit
points race
scratch race

However, now that it has been approved for the Olympic programme, the UCI Track Commission will make a detailed study of the format of the omnium in order to guarantee that it will be attractive to the public and indeed more oriented towards endurance; this will involve the addition of a sixth omnium event. This will fulfil the ambitions of endurance athletes aiming to participate in the Olympic Games. The new programme will also necessitate an extra day of competition giving 6 days of track cycling, one more than we had in Beijing.

This in no way affects the programme for the UCI Track World Championships, which will remain at 10 races for men and 9 races for women. The rationale behind the decision of the UCI Management Committee was to provide a track programme for the Olympic Games that was first of all equitable as well as exciting as a spectacle and catering for both sprint and endurance athletes in the best manner possible. The UCI will work towards guaranteeing an increase in the number of countries participating in the Games.

Our Federation has been delighted to be able to count on the unconditional support of the IOC for over a century, and is sure that the modifications made for the London Olympic Games will only serve to increase the stability of cycling, one of the founding sports of the Olympic movement.

The UCI is aware that over and above the legitimate discussions brought about by the changes – in particular concerning their short-term practical impact and the preoccupations of certain national interests – the cycling world will once again prove to be united and cooperative when faced with this historic turning point in its development.

UCI Press Services

International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Jacques Rogge arrives at a press conference at the IOC headquarters on December 10, AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI

The International Olympic Committee approved a UCI recommendation to restructure track events at the 2012 Games in London, including the abandonment of individual pursuit events.

The changes were part of a plan to bring “gender equity” to track events at the Olympics, but resulted in the elimination of the individual pursuit for both men and women.

The changes will, however, increase the number of women cyclists at the Olympics from 35 in Beijing to 84 – 45 percent of track cyclists, versus 19 percent in Beijing – by introducing more track events for women. There will now be a total of five track cycling events for men and women. There were seven men’s events and three women’s events in Beijing.

Under the plan approved during an executive board meeting on Thursday, women will compete in sprint, team sprint, team keirin, team pursuit and new omnium events, while the individual pursuit, points race and Madison events will be dropped altogether.

IOC president Jacques Rogge defended the changes, underlining that they followed a UCI recommendation “to focus more on endurance events.”

The new Omnium event is already partt of the UCI’s world Championship program. It is cycling’s equivalent of the decathlon in athletics, with six competitions, including individual pursuit and a points race.

As readers of this column well know, there is no disagreement with the IOC and UCI’s goal — to give women the same number of events as the men — but both sexes and a large percentage of the sport’s insiders are upset that cycling’s governing body plans to achieve that goal by eliminating the individual pursuit race from the Games.

Was 2008 the last time the individual pursuit appears on an Olympic track?

By now, both the UCI and IOC know from the open letters published on the Web, a petition drive being delivered Tuesday (with 4,408 unique signatures from people in more than 55 countries), and pleas by various national cycling federations that there’s a consensus to keep the individual pursuit. Track racers do not want the pursuit to go the way of the kilometer time trial, which was cut from the Beijing Olympics to make way for BMX.

Yes, the reason given for cutting the pursuit (along with the points race and Madison) from the 2012 Games in London is gender equality. The IOC needed the UCI to eliminate two men’s races and add two events for women. But, of the three eliminated events, the pursuit is the only one that was already raced by both men and women (see below). So why cut such a marquee event and add a completely new one, the multi-event omnium?

Over the past few weeks, we’ve communicated with administrators, riders, coaches and other insiders. Besides the members of the UCI management committee who voted for the proposals — “The decision was unanimous,” said UCI president Pat McQuaid — the people outside the UCI talk about “being kept in the dark,” or having it “sprung on us” with no consultation.

McQuaid, speaking last Friday from the World Anti-Doping Agency meeting in Sweden, told VeloNews that one reason for the lack of consultation was timing. He said that the UCI did not learn of the IOC’s gender-equality directive until mid-August this year. This was apparently too late for discussion by the 2009 UCI track commission, which had already held its last meeting; and it left only five weeks before a proposal had to be finalized for discussion by the management committee in late September.

Perhaps it was during that small window that a more open discussion could have taken place about which events to cut, and which ones to add. McQuaid, though, said that consulting with all of the national federations was not on the table. “We went through the federations when we took the kilometer off [the Olympic program],” he said, “and from 24 different federations we got 24 different responses.”

But that doesn’t tell us why the UCI’s inner circle decided that track racing’s signature event, the individual pursuit, had to be cut — for both men and women.

McQuaid explained that the management committee was guided by two main principles: (1) keeping the track races sufficiently diverse and attractive that they would sustain the public’s interest for at least five days; and (2) making sure that the whole cycling program was attractive enough that the sport remains part of the Olympics.

“There was full discussion [of the proposals] within the management committee and everybody had full opportunity to make their points,” McQuaid said. “It’s not that we haven’t tried to get more events — and we will continue to try to get more events in the future — but we were told we couldn’t have more events, and that was some weeks before the management committee meeting. So I couldn’t introduce [a proposal] in September and wait until January to make a decision. And the UCI has to make decisions in the best interests of the sport.

“I’d love to keep the pursuit in there, along with the Madison and the points race, but we were faced with a situation where there’s another review of the Olympic program coming in 2013, when one sport is going to be voted out. And we can’t see cycling put into a position where it is voted out of the program; so at the end of the day we have to work within the constraints that the IOC gives us.”

The UCI president is aware that cycling’s name has been dragged through the mud by the media because of frequent doping offenses. And that reputation didn’t improve at the 2008 Olympics when Spain’s national women’s road champion Maria Isabel Moreno was the first athlete sent home from Beijing for a positive drug test, and Italy’s Davide Rebellin, one of five athletes caught out retroactively, was recently stripped of his road race silver medal.

McQuaid did not mention doping as an issue, but he is well aware that the percentage of positives in the sport is much higher among road and six-day racers than it is among pure track racers. And as he pointed out, the pursuit is the one track event “that attracts road riders.” And he could have added that the other eliminated events, the points race and Madison, are the ones most suited to six-day riders.

As for keeping the track program long enough, McQuaid said, “If we put in the pursuit and not the omnium we would have an Olympic program that would be over in two days; but there’s still the team pursuit — and the individual pursuit in the omnium will be the full distance [4,000 meters for men, 3,000 meters for women] — so the events that are coming out of the program are in the omnium. And that will give us six days of racing instead of the current five.”

This argument is dubious at best. Because the Madison and points race went straight to finals, without qualifying rounds, their elimination from the programs deletes just two races. And they will be replaced by women’s races in the team sprint and team pursuit, which, assuming 12 nations take part in both events, would provide 16 separate races. Just these changes (while retaining the individual pursuit for men and women) makes 14 additional races — so the overall schedule would still run for at least five days.

McQuaid said that another part of the decision was a balance between sprinters’ events and endurance races. And though there are three sprinters’ races in the UCI proposal (sprint, keirin and team sprint), he claimed that endurance riders have not only the team pursuit but several races within the omnium.

“The distances [in the omnium] will be more reflective of an endurance event than the current shorter disciplines,” he said. “We haven’t put the whole project out yet, and we will when the proper time comes … and that will explain everything.

“The IOC makes an evaluation based on a whole load of issues, such as television, and we have to take into account other factors not just the history of the event [as in the case of the pursuit]. We have to adjust to modern times and modern demands — and the modern public. The arguments are all one-sided at the moment … so we’ll just have to wait and see.

“Right now … we’re waiting for the IOC decision to whether they accept it or not. But very rarely would they [change a decision]; they’re tendency is to accept the proposal from an international federation.”

As for the future of the individual pursuit (Madison and points race), and the future of track cycling, McQuaid concluded, “It’s not as if these event are going to disappear; they’re staying in the world championships every year. It’s not the end of track racing. And the program we’ll have for the Olympic Games will be attractive … both to the live public and the public at large.

“First we’ve got to wait and see when the IOC makes a decision and puts out a statement, and then we work within it. I do feel overall that it was agreed [by the management committee] that you’ve got to take something on the chin, but overall it’s better for the track sport. If it comes out being five and five [events for men and women in 2012], we can work towards getting six and six in the future.”

But as the international petition has shown, there are interested parties in at least 55 countries that want to see track sport’s classic event, the individual pursuit, remain as one of those five events.

An Internet petition has since been set in motion, but what else can be done to change the UCI’s mind? Time is at a premium because the decision is due to be ratified in early December when the UCI next meets with the IOC.

The process to make changes in the track program was begun earlier this year when the IOC asked cycling’s governing body to make all their Olympic events “gender neutral.” This was already the case in road cycling, mountain biking and BMX — which debuted in Beijing thanks to the elimination of track cycling’s kilometer time trial (for men) and 500-meter TT (for women). But at the 2008 Games, there were still seven track races for men and only three for women.

There has been no argument that there should be a 50-50 split at the next Olympics, but the current proposal is highly unpopular, especially with the athletes. The task of deciding which two men’s events to eliminate (and which two to add to the women’s program) was given to the UCI’s Track Commission, which has a president, four members and a coordinator (see box).

The commission has proposed the same five events for men and women: individual sprint, team sprint, keirin, team pursuit — and the omnium.  But no individual pursuit, even though (along with the match sprint) it is track cycling’s marquee event with a history stretching over five decades.

In contrast, the omnium did not become a world championship event until two years ago and it has engendered little interest among the athletes. And how many of you know what constitutes an omnium? Well, it is a series of five races that take place one after the other on the same day. It starts with a 200-meter flying start time trial, which is followed by a 5,000-meter scratch race, a 3,000-meter pursuit and a 60-lap points race, and concludes with a 1,000-meter TT (sometimes called the kilo). The event is scored by a points system, with the winner of each event being awarded one point, the runner-up two points, etc., and the overall champion being the one with the lowest points score over the five events.

Taylor Phinney in pursuit

With the omnium having three races for sprinters (the two time trials and scratch race) and two for endurance riders (pursuit and points race), it is biased toward fast-twitch athletes. But when VeloNews spoke with UCI track commission president Mike Turtur he insisted that the omnium would be like the decathlon in track-and-field athletics, an event that does favor the endurance athlete.

Clearly, there is a disconnect between cycling’s administrators and the riders, because as the Olympic proposal stands, the endurance athletes have only one event, the team pursuit, whereas the sprinters have three medal events (sprint, keirin and team sprint), and four if the omnium is included. The obvious solution is to eliminate the team sprint, an event that is of little public interest and favors the very few nations with sprinting depth (Great Britain, France and Australia) and reinstate the individual pursuit.

This would give two events for sprinters (sprint and keirin), two for endurance athletes (pursuit and team pursuit), and the omnium (which in theory favors sprinters although Turtur regards it as an endurance event).

The UCI says it is looking for television-friendly track races. Well, let’s keep the one event that the public understands and can attract stars of both track and road: the individual pursuit. What more could a TV director ask for than the potential London 2012 lineup matching the “older” generation of Bradley Wiggins, Hayden Roulston and Dominique Cornu versus young guns Taylor Phinney, Jack Bobridge, Jesse Sergent and Geraint Thomas. And even Swiss superstar Fabian Cancellara has expressed an interest in the pursuit as a steppingstone to a world hour record attempt.

So why does the UCI still prefer the omnium, a marginal and largely unpopular event?

The simple answer is the UCI track commission is pushing its own agenda. The commission’s senior member, Patrick Sercu, has fond memories of the event because he was the European omnium champion 11 times during a racing career in the 1960s and ’70s at a time when indoor track racing was highly popular and the event was contested by the top six-day riders — who included many of the era’s road stars.

Sercu’s cohort on the UCI track commission, Enrico Della Casa, is the president of the European Track Commission that promotes four omnium events in its annual European track championships: a sprinters omnium (made up of four short races) and an endurance athletes’ omnium (with four mid-distance races) for both men and women.

As for the other two members of the UCI Track Commission, Danish official Peder Pedersen is likely pleased that the team pursuit is retained (Denmark is the current world champion), while Japan’s Yoshinori Kuramasu would not want see his country’s signature event, the keirin, dropped from the Olympics.

That leaves just commission president Michael Turtur — a former individual and team pursuit rider — who told VeloNews he was not involved in the decision-making process (he has recently taken over from the longtime commission president, his countryman Ray Godkin).

“But I fully endorse the decision,” he said. “Some are disappointed with the choice of events, but others are overjoyed.”

Great Britain, with its dominant contingent of sprinters, is an obvious nation to embrace the current proposals; but according to USA Cycling’s director of athletics Jim Miller, it was the British that brought up the subject for discussion at a team managers’ meeting during the recent track World Cup meet in Manchester, England.

While the decision is not set in stone, changing the UCI’s mind will need riders, fans and officials from many countries to demand a re-think. The easiest plan is to remove the limited-interest team sprint and reinstate the individual pursuit; it seems that it will be more difficult to change the UCI’s support of the omnium.

Now is the time for action!

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Meares captured the keirin and 500-meter time trial gold medals as Australia completed the three-day event winning eight of the 17 events at their home event.

After two rounds, Australia leads the overall World Cup standings with 210 points, 11 points ahead of Britain (199) with Germany (189) third.

Meares, who won the 500-meter time trial in the second-fastest time in history at 33.583 seconds, came away with three gold medals at the event following her earlier victory in the sprint.

Lithuanian Simona Krupeckaite holds the 500-meter time trial world record at 33.296.

Meares came from the rear of the field with two laps left in the six-lap keirin to shade her Chinese rival Guo Shuang and Christin Muche of Germany in the final.

“I was really quite worried about the load this evening and once the 500 (time trial) was out the way, I really didn’t get the chance to celebrate, I was straight into the mindset of the keirin,” Meares said. “I was tired, I was hurting, but I actually felt half decent.”

The keirin win was particularly significant for Meares because she suffered a serious neck injury in a race fall in January last year and it was only the second time she has won a World Cup keirin gold medal.

Shane Perkins, riding for the Australian Jayco professional team, beat Frenchman Kevin Sireau two heats to nil to take out the men’s sprint.

New Zealand won two gold medals on the final night in the women’s team pursuit and men’s Madison.

The New Zealand team of Kaytee Boyd, Lauren Ellis and Alison Shanks clocked 3:24.771 in beating Britain and Australia in the women’s team pursuit, while Marc Ryan and Thomas Scully combined to win the Madison from Germany and Ukraine.

The Kiwis finished second overall to Australia in the Melbourne leg with Germany third.

The third round of the World Cup will be staged in Cali, Colombia, from December 10-12.

An untried Australian team pursuit combination beat arch-rival Great Britain in the Melbourne World Cup round on Friday.

Cameron Meyer, Rohan Dennis, Michael Hepburn and Luke Durbridge clocked 3:59.599 seconds to win the gold medal ride-off.

The British, who broke Australia’s world record to win the team pursuit at last year’s Beijing Olympics, fielded three members of their outstanding team squad ─ Steven Burke, Edward Clancy and Andrew Tennant ─ with Andrew Fenn coming in for Geraint Thomas.

Britain had qualified fastest ahead of Australia, but in the gold medal ride the Brit’s pace line was broken at the three kilometer mark of the four- kilometer distance.

They were down by just under a second when the second man briefly lost touch with the leader, disrupting the team’s rhythm and ensuring they would lose. The British squad crossed the line more than two seconds off of the Aussie’s pace at in 4:01.935.

The only other team to go sub-four minutes in Australia was Germany, who made history at the 2000 Sydney Olympics by becoming the first quartet in history to break four minutes with their 3:59.710 to win the gold medal.

“To go sub-four minute tonight in front of a home crowd is just sensational and the boys just did so much training, so much hard work over the last month really preparing for this and to beat the Brits in the final, there’s no better feeling,” said Meyer. “The coach told us that we were up and that was even more motivating that we were up on the Brits and we knew in the qualifying that we came home the stronger team so to be up on them at 3km I was quite confident that we were going to bring it home in the last kilometer.

“We had shown in the qualifying (that) we were quite capable of bringing it up to the Brits tonight and we had great confidence going into it,” said Meyer. “We felt good, we studied what we did this morning and we come out and put it altogether and it was just a flawless ride by us.

“In front of a big home crowd against the Brits, there’s not much more pressure that those boys have been under and for them to handle it so well and to really come together as a team and ride that fast was something special tonight.”

It was the second gold medal at this World Cup round for Meyer, after Thursday’s win in the points race.

Australia won two gold medals on the second day of the World Cup with Scott Sunderland winning the one kilometer time trial.

The home nation leads the medal tally with five gold medals.

German Carsten Bergemann won the keirin final and New Zealander Tom Scully took out the men’s scratch race.

In the women’s events, the Chinese combination of Gong Jinjie and Lin Junhong won the team sprint in 33.500 over the Netherlands and Australia, while Italian world champion Giorgia Bronzini claimed the 20-kilometer points race.

Read more about the topic in John Wilcockson’s Nov. 17 article. View the petition at ipetitions.com.

World Cup – Track, Melbourne – Day 1

Men

30km points race
1. Cameron Meyer (AUS) 33 pts
2. Ioannis Tamouridis (GRE) 33 pts
3. Lukasz Bujko (POL) 28 pts

Team sprint
1. Team Jayco (AUS – Daniel Ellis, Shane Perkins, Scott Sunderland) 44.589
2. Germany (Carsten Bergemann, Rene Enders, Tobias Wachter) 44.673
3. Russia (Sergey Borisov, Denis Dmitriev, Sergey Kucherov) 45.206

4km Individual pursuit
1. Jesse Sergent (NZL) 4:23.192
2. Rohan Dennis (AUS) 4:24.374
3. Vitaliy Shchedov (UKR) 4:32.106

Women

3km Individual pursuit
1. Wendy Houvenaghel (GBR) 3:33.771
2. Alison Shanks (NZL) 3:34.133
3. Lesya Kalitovska (UKR) 3:38.047

Scratch
1. Evgeniya Romanyuta (RUS)
2. Giorgia Bronzini (ITA)
3. Theresa Cliff-Ryan (VBR/USA)

Sprint
1. Anna Meares (AUS)
2. Shuang Guo (CHN)
3. Willy Kanis (NED)

Results – Melbourne World Cup Track, Day 2

Men

Kilometer time trial
1. Scott Sunderland (Jayco/AUS) 1:02.171
2. Wang Chongyang (CHN) 1:02.204
3. Teun Mulder (Cofidis/NED) 1:02.404

Team Pursuit
1. Australia (Rohan Dennis, Luke Durbridge, Michael Hepburn, Cameron Meyer) – 3:59.599
2. Great Britain (Steven Burke, Edward Clancy, Andrew Fenn, Andrew Tennant) – 4:01.935
3. New Zealand (Sam Bewley, Peter Latham, Marc Ryan, Jesse Sergent) – 4:00.237

Keirin
1. Carsten Bergemann (GER)
2. Azizulhasni Awang (BTA/AUS)
3. Josiah Ng (MAS)

Scratch
1. Thomas Scully (NZL)
2. Lukasz Bujko (POL)
3. Viktor Shmalko (KTA/RUS)

Women

20 kilometer points race
1. Giorgia Bronzini (ITA) 16 pts
2. Shelley Olds (USA) 11 pts
3. Madeleine Sandig (GER) 11 pts

Team Sprint
1. China (Gong Jinjie, Lin Junhong) 33.500
2. Netherlands (Yvonne Hijgenaar, Willy Kanis) 33.828
3. Australia (Anna Meares, Emily Rosemond) 34.238

World Cup – Track, Melbourne – Day 3

Men

Madison
1. New Zealand (Marc Ryan, Thomas Scully) 15 pts
2. Germany (Robert Bengsch, Marcel Kalz) 8 pts
3. Ukraine (Sergiy Lagkuti, Mykhaylo Radionov) 5 pts

Sprint
1. Shane Perkins (Jayco/AUS)
2. Kevin Sireau (Cofidis/FRA)
3. Matthew Crampton (GBR)

Women

500m Time Trial
1. Anna Meares (AUS) 33.583
2. Kaarle McCulloch (Jayco/AUS) 34.267
3. Sandie Clair (FRA) 34.339

Team Pursuit
1. New Zealand (Kaytee Boyd, Lauren Ellis, Alison Shanks) 3:24.771
2. Britain (Katie Colclough, Wendy Houvenaghel, Joanna Rowsell) 3:25.938
3. Australia (Ashlee Ankudinoff, Sarah Kent, Josephine Tomic) 3:26.869

Keirin
1. Anna Meares (AUS)
2. Guo Shuang (CHN)
3. Christin Muche (GER)

Olympic silver medalist Anna Meares headlined a winning night for Australia with victory over her Chinese rival Guo Shuang in the women’s sprint at the Melbourne World Cup round on Thursday.

Meares beat Guo by two heats to nil in the best-of-three gold medal ride-off in one of three Australian victories on the opening night of the track World Cup.

World champion Cameron Meyer won the men’s points race and Australia’s Jayco professional squad claimed the team sprint.

Meares beat Guo in an eventful semi-final at Beijing last year, while the Chinese star beat her in the quarter-finals last month at the opening World Cup round in Manchester.

“I’m back in town. I just feel like I belong in this event again,” Meares said.

Meyer fought back from a lap down to win the 30km points race.

He was tied on points with Ioannis Tamouridis of Greece at the finish, but Meyer won because he was better-placed in the final sprint.

Daniel Ellis combined with Shane Perkins and Scott Sunderland to claim the men’s team sprint for Jayco from Germany and Russia.

In other opening day events, New Zealander Jesse Sergent won the men’s four-kilometer individual pursuit from Australian Rohan Dennis and Russian Vitaliy Shchedov.

Britain’s Wendy Houvenaghel took out the women’s 3000m individual pursuit from New Zealand’s world champion Alison Shanks and Lesya Kalitovska of the Ukraine.

Russian Evgeniya Romanyuta won the women’s scratch race from Italian Giorgia Bronzini.

Mr. Pat McQuaid, President of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI); and Mr. Michael Turtur, President of the UCI Track Commission

cc: Mr. Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC); Mr. Hein Verbruggen, Member, IOC and ex-president, UCI

Dear Messrs. McQuaid and Turtur:

In defense of the individual pursuit remaining in the track cycling program at the Olympic Games

I understand that (1) discussions are currently taking place between the UCI Management Committee and the IOC to finalize the changes in the track cycling program for the 2012 Olympic Games in London; (2) the purpose of the discussions is to have an equal number of events for men and women; and (3) the current proposals include the elimination of the individual pursuit competition (for both men and women).

While no one disputes that women should be given as much opportunity as men in sports, as is already the case in road cycling, mountain biking and BMX, many people within the sport of cycling (including the competitors themselves, cycling insiders, and members of the media) believe that eliminating the individual pursuit from the Olympics would be a catastrophic mistake. It is the equivalent of deleting the 1500 meters (the metric mile) from track & field athletics — something that the IOC would never consider.

I understand that the event being considered to replace the pursuit, one of the most prestigious events in cycling history, is a new event called the omnium — which has very little support from the athletes, some of whom regard it as a “joke.” Featuring five different races, including a 200-meter sprint and 1km time trial, the omnium has generated very little enthusiasm in the three years it has featured at the world track championships, whereas the pursuit has a 70-year legacy and is the only cross-over event truly accessible to both road and track racers.

I am surprised that Mr. Turtur would even consider supporting the elimination of the individual pursuit from the Olympic Games. He was an accomplished track racer, and I still remember reporting his dominant victory in the individual pursuit at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane — as well as his gold medal in the team pursuit two years later at the Los Angeles Olympics. Mr. Turtur is also aware of the many riders whose racing careers have evolved from the pursuit event.

Although it was not called the pursuit at the first modern Olympiad in 1896, there has always been a middle-distance cycling race in the Games for individuals and/or teams. The individual pursuit has been contested at world championships since 1939, and its popularity with the riders, coaches and crowds made it a natural to become an Olympic discipline for the first time at Tokyo in 1964.

The inaugural champion, 24-year-old Jiri Daler, was the first cyclist in Czechoslovak history to win an Olympic gold medal. His victory greatly popularized cycling in his country, and five years later the world cycling championships were held in his hometown of Brno. Daler went on to become the first professional cyclist from eastern Europe when he signed with the French team Frimatic.

Many leading pro racers in that era began their careers competing in the team and/or individual pursuit. They included Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil (the first man to win the Tour de France five times) and Roger Rivière (a world hour record holder), German Rudi Altig (who became the world pro road champion), and Britons Tom Simpson (another world road champion and multi-time classics winner) and Barry Hoban (his country’s most prolific Tour de France’s stage winner prior to Mark Cavendish)

Another legendary pursuit rider, Knut Knudsen, was the first Norwegian cyclist to win an Olympic gold medal, in 1972. He went on to become a leading professional and wore the race leader’s pink jersey at the Giro d’Italia. Other Olympians who progressed to the upper echelons of pro cycling were Alain Bondue of France, Gregor Braun of Germany, Tony Doyle of Britain, Viatcheslav Ekimov of Russia, Steve Hegg of the United States, and Hans-Henrik Oersted of Denmark.

Olympic cycling was still restricted to amateur athletes in the Barcelona Games, where Britain’s Chris Boardman startled the sporting world with his emphatic victory in the pursuit over the favored east Europeans. His aerodynamically designed carbon-fiber machine revolutionized the art of bicycle building, and Boardman went on to conquer the world hour record and set a speed record in the prologue time trial of the Tour de France. His breakthrough success in the 1992 Olympic pursuit was the spark that generated Great Britain’s subsequent climb to the pinnacle of world cycling.

Women’s track cycling first entered the Olympics in 1988, when only the match sprint was contested; the individual pursuit was added in 1992. Some of the world’s best women racers have medaled in the individual pursuit, including Germany’s Petra Rossner and Judith Arndt; Rebecca Twigg of the U.S.; Marion Clignet of France; Leontien Van Moorsel of the Netherlands; and Sarah Ulmer of New Zealand.

The current Olympic pursuit champion, Rebecca Romero of Great Britain, has said this about the current proposals of the UCI Track Commission to add two specialist sprint disciplines for women (the team sprint and keirin) and eliminate the endurance riders’ pursuit: “I think we should move towards equality between males and females in the medals available, but I just think this isn’t equality in terms of sprint and endurance riders. You’re taking away, essentially, with regards to the individual pursuit, one of the purest forms of competition that there is on the track.”

The value of the Olympic pursuit competition has been emphasized by the experiences of the Beijing finalists Bradley Wiggins of Great Britain and Hayden Roulston of New Zealand. Wiggins, the gold medalist in both 2004 and 2008, this year went on to finish fourth overall at the Tour de France. He is now regarded as one of the sport’s true stars. As for Roulston, his performance in China has revived his career as a pro cyclist, and he made his Tour de France debut in 2009.

Keeping the individual pursuit in the Olympics is vital to our sport. Just imagine the men’s lineup in London: Wiggins says he will defend his gold medal at home; silver medalist Roulston will be back for New Zealand; the world’s fastest current pursuiter Geraint Thomas is Great Britain’s second counter; USA’s world pursuit champion Taylor Phinney will be 22 in 2012; Australia has two strong contenders in 2009 worlds runner-up Jack Bobridge and former world junior champion Cameron Meyer; and Belgium’s Dominique Cornu is improving fast. And that’s just seven of the men who’d vie for pursuit gold in 2012.

In the five decades that I have been reporting on cycling, the individual pursuit has remained one of the keystones of the sport. It is very healthy at the junior (under-19) level, with the number of entrants increasing impressively at recent world junior championships from 27 riders in 2007, 36 in 2008, and 46 in 2009 — a 77 percent increase in two years.

The first Olympic women’s cycling gold medalist and former world pursuit champion Connie Carpenter recently told me: “I did pursuit because all the great road riders did it — it was a place to showcase your pure power and form.” She is just one of hundreds of top cyclists who chose to contest the individual pursuit because of its pure athletic challenge.

If the UCI and its Track Commission continues to recommend the elimination of the individual pursuit from the 2012 Olympics, it is making a monumental error. Please reconsider your decision on this historic event that is vital to the health and popularity of cycling throughout the world.

Very sincerely,

John Wilcockson
Editor-at-Large, VeloNews

Recognized by ASO for 40 years’ service to the Tour de France
Former editor of VeloNews: The Journal of Competitive Cycling, Inside Cycling, Winning: Bicycle Racing Illustrated, Cyclist Monthly and International Cycle Sport

Sir Chris Hoy won his third gold at the UCI Track World Cup on Sunday in Manchester as Great Britain ended the meeting with yet more medals.

Four-time Olympic champion Hoy, who at this event was making his international return from injury, added team sprint gold to the keirin and sprint crowns he’d already won and in the process replicated his Beijing haul.

In all Britain won 10 golds from 17 events, as well as four silvers and a bronze medal on their home track.

Sunday saw Britain’s women’s pursuit team set a new world record time of three minutes, 21.875 seconds, the trio of Lizzie Armitstead, Joanna Rowsell and Wendy Houvenaghel taking 0.54 second off the previous record.

In the men’s pursuit, the British team clocked the second-fastest time in history, 1.081 second down on the time Great Britain set in Beijing.

Hoy, who injured his hip in his last World Cup meeting in Copenhagen in February and so had to miss March’s World Championships in Poland, was delighted with his performance.

“I don’t think I could’ve expected anything more,” said the Scot. “Even this morning when I woke up with sore legs, I don’t think I could’ve expected to go as quick as we went today (Sunday).

“That last lap was a 13.02 (seconds) and I believe that’s the fastest time ever for a third lap of a team sprint. Quicker than Beijing, quicker than anyone’s ever done.”

Reflecting on his injury, Hoy added: “It gave me time to get over the whole post-Beijing period and made me realize just how much I missed being on the bike. I’ve come back and I’ve enjoyed it as much as I was doing before Beijing.”