Worlds Wrapup, and Looking Ahead
This year's World Championships had plenty of excitement but few real surprises. Theo Bos was clearly the best sprinter although Greg Bauge-the sprint winner at the LA World Cup looked very good too, and almost got to the line ahead of Bos in the first ride of the sprint final. Chris Hoy is clearly in great form now and won the kilo with a large margin and was just .2 seconds slower than his World Record time set at the last Olympics. He looks good for his World Record attempt coming up next month in La Paz, Bolivia, on the same track used for other record-setting efforts going back 20+ years.
In the women's sprint events it was all Victoria Pendleton. The British rider won the team sprint with a young BMX rider who has only been on a velodrome for a couple of months now, and then Victoria won the keirin final about an hour after she'd won the individual sprint. Anna Meares of Australia won the 500mTT with another World Record, and another Australian, Kathy Bates won the points race. Sarah Hammer was clearly the best in the pursuit and becomes the first American to defend a title since Rebecca Twigg did it in the 80's. Sarah had a day to rest before the points race this year and after her domination at the LA World Cup she had reason to be optimistic. But during the points race she "just didn't have it" and scored just 2 points to place 14th. It looked like Becky Quinn would get a bronze medal in the Scratch Race but she was relegated for an irregular move in the final sprint.
And the American men? Well, Brad Huff gathered the only medal, and decent placing really, by getting 3rd in the inaugural running of the "omnium", a series of 5 events held during one day of racing. Other than Brad's result, there was nothing. At all. The men sprinters were nowhere near ready to contend for the places so they were left home, and the only endurance rider besides Brad was Mike Creed, who finished last in his scratch race heat and failed to make the final.
How bad is it? Well, even the Australians are looking to make some big changes in their track programs because of their sub-par results at this last major event before Beijing. Aside from Anna Meares they didn't have any success in the sprint events at this year's Worlds. Maybe it's that training program that Mark has since discarded (see Mark's interview below)? The major problem for Australia is that they don't have as much money floating around for their track programs after a big investment leading up to the Sydney Olympics. The Australians are trying to adapt to the realities of a budget that is no longer the envy of the world, and now relatively below that of the well-funded British track cycling program.
On the American side of things there are some changes coming too, and leaving the under-performing male sprinters home was the first visible sign of that. Pat McDonough has been put in charge of overseeing all of USAC's racing programs and basically he says that we're no longer going to support riders just because they are the best in the US. In the past, a rider could get support (money and living expenses) just by being the fastest, or second fastest US male sprinter, even if they rarely even made the round of 16 in qualifying. Well, no more of that. Pat says that support will come from success, and by success, he means medals. And if you're someone like Sarah Hammer who has success, they'll support the rider and their coach.
It's clear that the old way wasn't working. Some riders may have felt a lack of motivation to do their very best if they knew that being fast enough to be the best in the US was good enough to continue receiving support. But what is unclear now is who will support the future stars who don't (yet?) have some results to qualify them to receive USAC support? We all know there's virtually no sponsorship money available for a rider in the US who only races on the track, and getting paid by a road racing-based team is okay for the track endurance riders, but what about the sprinters? Maybe they can go to the Keirin minor leagues in Japan for half the year to make some money to sustain them for the rest of the year.
In case you missed it, the almost "live" video coverage by WCSN.com was really good (except for the announcer), and well worth the $5 cost of a one month subscription for access. Each day they showed about 3 hours of video coverage of the evening sessions, and if you haven't seen start to finish coverage of a sprint tournament, keirin heats, or points race you're missing out on a lot of the interesting details. The footage is still available "on demand" in their archives .
