Track Cycling

Track Cycling is a sport that we had only seen on television before our trip to Athens 2004. We attended two of the six days and were lucky enough to see two British Gold medals.

Qualification

Qualification for Beijing is a complicated affair, with places being allocated to individuals and teams at the World Championships (27-30 March 2008, Machester - England), World Cup (4 events not yet confirmed.), “B” World Championships (26-28 July 2007, Cape Town - South Africa) and the UCI Final Individual Track Rankings for season 2007-2008.

Form

The Commonwealth Games in March 2006, was a huge success for Great Britain's component parts with Gold for Paul Manning individual pursuit and Victoria Pendleton in sprint, Scotland in the Team Sprint and England in the Team Pursuit.

At the Cycling World Track Championships in Bordeaux in April 2006, Chris Hoy won gold in the kilometre time trial, with Britain claiming a six medal haul. Craig MacLean was also in the spotlight, picking up two silvers in both the men’s and team sprints, as Team GB totalled one gold, four silvers and a bronze. The other medal winners were the men’s team pursuit, Victoria Pendleton in the women’s sprint and Paul Manning in the men’s pursuit.

Although, the kilometre time trial, won by Hoy in Athens and Jason Queally in Sydney, has now been removed from the Olympic programme, Britain has a very strong team with potential medal chances in most of the events. With Athens triple medallist, Bradley Wiggins likely to return to the team there is every chance that the cyclists will match their four medals from Athens and Sydney.

What to watch

Track Cycling is amongst our medal chance selectons. We will again be looking to get tickets to the Velodrome, with the individual and team pursuit and sprint events at the top of the list.