STAFF’S INCREDIBLE KILO -- DAY 3

The third and final day of the Moscow Track World Cup saw yet another stand-out performance by a GB sprinter, as Jamie Staff won the bronze medal in a high quality kilo competition with a time of 1m 02.532s. This is the fourth fastest Kilo ever by a British rider and less than a second slower than Jason Queally’s epic Olympic gold winning ride two years ago.

The facts behind Jamie’s performance are scarcely credible. A professional BMX rider for the past decade, Jamie has, in the last six months, turned his attention to Track racing with the ultimate aim of winning a medal at the next Olympics.

Earlier this year he recorded the necessary qualifying times to join the GB cycling Team. However, his commitments to his BMX sponsors are such that he has actually spent relatively little time on the Track up to now. He rode his first Kilo (100 metre time Trial) a few weeks ago in the Mexico round of the World Cup and recorded an impressive time of one minute four seconds. Since then he has been back riding BMX and he flew direct from the USA to join the GB Track team in Moscow. To improve his Mexico time by some two seconds is a pretty special performance in the circumstances.

National Track Sprint Coach Iain Dyer explained how he’s been working with Staff in the last few weeks and put the ride into some perspective:

"Basically he’s been emailing me his training programme and we’ve been advising him on some specific training so increase his aerobic capacity so that he’s stronger towards the end of the Kilo. But he’s hardly been on a Track since Mexico, let alone trained on tri-bars. Jamie’s a pretty instinctive athlete and he is clearly still learning, but this is still a very large jump in performance. The conditions were good, the temperature was about 27 degrees, but he didn’t use overshoes and a couple of other things which could make him go faster. It was a pretty awesome ride."

Kilo Result

1 S Lausberg (Ger) 1.01.751
2 A. Vynokurov (Ukr) 1.02.447
3 J. Staff (GB) 1.02.532

1 Jason Queally, Sydney, Olympics 2000 1m 01.609s 
2 Jason Queally, Manchester, world Championships 2000 1m 02.45s 
3 Chris Hoy, Columbia, World Cup 2001 1m 02.499s
4 Jamie Staff, Moscow, World Cup 2002 1m 02.532s

SPRINTERS SMASH NATIONAL RECORDS -- DAY 2

Day two of the Moscow round of the Track world cup saw British riders in action in the men’s and women’s sprint, 500m Time Trial and men’s and women’s scratch races. After the success of the Team sprint trio yesterday, it was a less successful day for the GB riders as they all struggled to make an impact in highly competitive fields. However, for the two young sprinters Ross Edgar and Denise Hampson, there was the excitement of new national records in the men’s and women’s flying 200 metre time trials.

In the women’s sprint events, Denise Hampson went out of the match sprint in the first round. She had qualified in 15th place in 11.508s for the 200m Time Trial, compared to the fastest time of 10.880s recorded by Natallia Tsylinskaya of Belorussia. There was consolation for Denise when it was realised that not only was her time a new personal best but, once officially confirmed, also a new National record, beating Wendy Everson’s 11.651s set in Bogata in 1995. Denise than went on to record 36.921s in the 500 metre Time Trial, which was good enough for 11th place. Winner was that woman Natallia Tsylinskaya again, with a time of 34.413s.

In the Men’s Sprint, Jamie Staff was a non-starter after a nightmare evening on Friday. As a member of the winning Team Sprint trio he was selected for medical control (i.e. dope test) and left the stadium late with a race official acting as his driver. Unfortunately the pair became lost and didn’t get back to the hotel until 2.30am.

With Jamie’s main individual focus of the event being tomorrow’s Kilo, the decision was made to let him rest and withdraw him from the sprint.This left Ross Edgar our only representative in the Men’s Sprint and he enjoyed a rollercoaster of emotions. The event began very well for him when he qualified an impressive 6th fastest with 10.202s, which was only 5 hundredths behind French sprint legend Florian Rousseau.

More importantly, it was also a new British Record, beating Craig MacLean’s 10.324s set in Mexico in 1999, an incredible achievement for the 19 year old. However, Ross then suffered a surprise first round defeat at the hands of Poland’s Grzegorz Trebski and was then unable to make any progress in the repechage, perhaps suffering a reaction to his superb qualifying performance.

Team Manager Heiko Salzwedel was full of praise for Edgar’s ride: "It was a great qualifying performance. He’s got a very bright future in the sport. The success of the work he is doing with his coach Frederic Magne at the World Cycling Centre in Lausanne has already justified the decision to send him out there. Ross has a very good relationship with Frederic and he has settled in very well and is clearly responding very well to the training he is doing."

In both Scratch Races, the GB riders were off the pace with Emma Davies finishing 18th and Mel Szubrycht relegated to 27th after a technical infringement in the women’s race. Tony Gibb finished 13th in the men’s event. Team Manager Heiko Salzwedel was nonetheless impressed with his first sight of Mel in competition -- "She rode a very gutsy race and will have benefited from the experience. It’s been a very competitive and tough World Cup with some very powerful teams here."

With two national records set and a truly world class performance yesterday by the Team Sprint Trio of Jamie Staff, Jason Queally and Chris Hoy, this world Cup has already provided plenty of good news for the GB team. Tomorrow sees Jamie Staff tackling only his second Kilo, but it should be an interesting ride after his blistering one minute four seconds ride in Mexico. Still racing BMX virtually full-time, Jamie manages to transfer his fitness and skills to the Track with amazing ease. Expect another fine performance from him and perhaps, on the fast Moscow track, a personal best. We’ll let you know how he gets on tomorrow (Sunday) evening.

TEAM SPRINT WIN FOR GB TRIO -- DAY 1

The GB team took an important and convincing win in the Team Sprint (aka Olympic sprint) on the first day of the 3rd round of the Track World Cup in Moscow today. A new line-up of Jamie Staff, Jason Queally and Chris Hoy qualified fastest in 1.00.15 on the 333m Moscow track. They then drew Australia in the final and proceeded to produce a sub minute ride as they destroyed the probable Aussie Commonwealth Games team of Sean Eady, Ryan Bailey and Ben Kersten.

Jamie Staff is of course headline news in cycling this year as a BMX rider who has taken to the Track like a duck to water. His awesome power and acceleration have been evident from the moment he first got on a Track bike. Team Manager Heiko Salzwedel was clearly excited by the potential of the Staff, Queally, Hoy line-up when we spoke to him after the event: "Jamie is sensational. He gave the team an awesome start before handing over to Olympic Kilo champion Jason Queally. Chris Hoy then drove it home with a quick final lap. Though Hoy will obviously be riding for Scotland, it will have given the riders an important psychological advantage over the Australians before the Commonwealth Games."

Jamie Staff had a less successful time in the Keirin where he was let down first by his inexperience and then by some judging which the team thought "questionable". In the first round Jamie sprinted too early and was caught before the line. Heiko put this down to pure inexperience: "it’s only his second ever Keirin. He thought he could hold the sprint for a lap but couldn’t. He’s learning all the time." In the repechages Jamie won his race comfortably but was disqualified for apparently moving above the sprinting line. The team pointed out that this had occurred before the sprint had started with 300 metres to go and that Jamie had held his line correctly after the sprint had begun at 250 metres. However, the commissaires were adamant and Jamie was out of the event.

Also competing for GB were Tim Buckle who rode his first international 4000m Individual Pursuit and produced a very respectable time of 4 minutes 34.5 seconds for ninth place. Winner was the ageless German Jens Lehmann with a time of 4.22.

In the women’s Keirin Denise Hampson was eliminated in the repechages and Tony Gibb missed the top ten in the Points Race. Looking ahead to tomorrow, GB will be fielding two of their most exciting sprinters in the Match Sprint. Teenager Ross Edgar, currently based at the world Cycling Centre in Switzerland, will be attempting to build on the early season results which included a win in the sprint at the Herne Hill Good Friday meeting. He recorded a time of 10.63 in qualifying for the sprint competition which he won at the opening meeting at the new World Cycling Centre Track and has looked impressive in training today. Also unexpectedly giving the Sprint a shot, after his early departure from the Keirin, will be Jamie Staff. However, Staff’s main target for the meeting is the Kilo and he will make a decision about his progress in the Sprint competition after the qualification stages.

Also up tomorrow are the Scratch races. Mel Szubrycht and Emma Davies go in the women’s race whilst Tony Gibb is our sole representative in the men’s race. Szubrycht has recently made the qualification times for the England team for the Commonwealth Games and is a highly competitive individual. It will be interesting to see how she goes against international opposition.

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