Olympic Development Riders
Warm-up for Worlds in Gent
Josh Hargreaves, Christian Lyte and Jason Kenny after winning the Team Sprint in Gent.
Following a mid-term training camp last week, a group of sprinters and endurance riders from the Great Britain Olympic Development Programme travelled to Gent in Belgium for a two day test event to give the organisers a practice run before the UCI Junior World Championships in August.
The team that travelled to Gent for Great Britain was:
Male Sprinters: Christian Lyte, Josh Hargreaves, Jason Kenny (All Sportcity Velo)
Female Sprinters: Anna Blyth (VC St Raphael) Lucy Ayres (Sportcity Velo), Jess Varnish (Halesowen AC&CC)
Endurance Women: Katie Curtis (Cardiff Ajax) and Lizzie Armitstead (Raleigh ERV).
Of the riders who travelled, Jessica Varnish was given special dispensation to ride the Junior event despite still being 15 years old whilst Lizzie unfortunately became ill and missed out on the racing. Looking after the riders was team manager Helen Mortimer with coaches Iain Dyer and Simon Cope. The GB team were joined in Gent by a young team from Wales with Rachel Ball and Becky Figgitt.
Gent World Championship Track
The velodrome to be used for the Junior World Championships at Gent is not the tight 6-day track known so well by many a British visitor, but the refurbished Eddy Merckx Velodrome. This is formerly an outdoor 250 metre track but is now housed inside a new building that is part of the Belgian Olympic Park alongside other sporting facilities for Belgian national teams.
COMPETITION REPORT
Saturday, 3rd of June
Women's Keirin
All three of Great Britain's girls competed in this event with two of them making the final where Anna Blyth finished second to French girl Virginie Cueff whilst Jessica Varnish finished in 5th. Lucy Ayres made the minor final where second place meant she was to finish the competition in 8th place overall.
Womens 500 metre Time Trial
There was another good performance by the British girls in this event with Anna Blyth finishing second to Clair whilst Lucy Ayres was 4th. Jessica Varnish was in 5th again but her time on restricted gears for an Under 16 rider was significantly faster than the current British record of 38.184s (Jo Wilman).
1. Sandie Clair (Fra) 36.260
2. Anna Blyth 36.828
3. Virginie Cueff (fra) 36.971
4. Lucy Ayres 37.052
5. Jess Varnish 37.192
6. Sabine Brettschneider (Ger) 37.428
7. Hannah Welte (Ger) 37.797
9. Becky Figgitt (Wal) 39.862
15.Rachel Ball (Wal) 42.114
Men's Sprint
As with any sprint competition it was a flying 200 metre time trial to decide the fastest 8 riders who would go through to the quarter finals and fastest was Jason Kenny. He recorded a time that was not only a personal best but also the quickest time ever by a British junior, surpassing his time of 10.569s from Austria last year. Jason's time was also by far the quickest of any of the other riders with Josh Hargreaves equal second but seeded third behind the son of the famous German sprinter Michael Hubner, Sascha.
200m Qualifying
1. Jason Kenny 10.496 (New Nat Jnr Rec)
2. Sascha Hubner (Ger, Michael's son) 11.144
3. Josh Hargreaves 11.144 (same time, but drew 3rd seed)
4. Ghislain Boiron (Fra) 11.190
5. Tobias Wachter (Ger) 11.277
6. Nicolas Bourin (Fra) 11.390
7. Dick Post (Ned) 11.552
8. Jelmer Stegink (Ned) 11.773
Being so much quicker than his rivals, Jason cruised through all the following rounds to win the sprint final against Hubner whilst Josh Hargreaves lost his quarter final to Nicolas Bourin (Fra) and ended up 7th in the competition.
Men's Kilometre
There was another win for Great Britain in the Kilometre where Christian Lyte finished well ahead of German Daniel Rackwitz, a rider Christian had raced against during the Revolution series last winter. His coach Iain Dyer said of Christian's performance "It wasn't quite a personal best for Christian who did a 1.06.397 in Manchester last month, but it was a solid performance in competition which bodes well for the future."
1. Christian Lyte 1:06.920
2. Daniel Rackwitz (Ger) 1:07.482
3. Dick Post (Ned) 1:08.805
Womens Scratch
Racing for GB in this was Welsh rider Katie Curtis who finished 6th behind the winner Anja Drotleff of Germany. Rachel Ball from Wales was 7th and Becky Figgitt a non finisher.
Women's Pursuit
In her second event of the day, GB's Katie Curtis finished in the bronze medal position with a 2.38.267 for the 2,000 metres in an event won in a time of 2.36.274 by Laura Doria of Italy.
Sunday 4th June
Womens Sprint
The competition began with a qualifying round of flying 200 metre time trials where French girl Sandie Clair (Fra) was again quickest with 12.028 whilst Anna Blyth was second in 12.093 which is faster than the national record of 12.199 also held by Anna but not as quick as her personal best of 11.993.
The other qualifiers were Virginie Cueff of France in 12.324 and Jessica Varnish with 12.344. Lucy Ayres was just outside the qualifying places with 5th in 12.531 just ahead of German girl Anja Drotleff (12.55).Whilst Anna and Jess went through to the semi finals, Lucy had to be content with the 5th to 8th minor final where she finished second to finish this competition in 6th position.
In the semi finals, both the British girls lost to their French rivals as Anna lost to Cueff and Jessica to Clair to make it an all French final (won by Cueff ). Anna and Jess meanwhile rode off against each other for bronze which Anna won 2:0. Despite not making the final, their coach Iain Dyer was nevertheless pleased with how they rode, saying "both girls are learning a lot doing these races and Jess it has to be said, is punching well above her weight category in this company!"
Mens Keirin
Jason Kenny showed yet again just how good he is by winning the final for this event but only after just managing to survive a nightmare qualifying heat where after being completely tucked up in a box until the last 150m, he managed to come out the back of the pack, and then proceed to sprint all the way around them to make the final with 2nd place.
Christian however dominated his qualifier in fine style from the front, but couldn't make the same impact in the final where Jason controlled the race from the front, leading all the way from the gun and ensuring none of his rivals could find a way past him. Christian meanwhile finished 5th in a race where the experience of racing against international opposition will have taught him many a valuable lesson
Final
1. Jason Kenny (Gbr)
2. Tobias Wachter (Ger)
3. Daniel Rackwitz (Ger)
4. Nicolas Bourin (Fra)
5. Christian Lyte (Gbr)
6. Jelmer Stegink (Ned)
Women's Points
Katie Curtis in yet another consistent performance finished 5th in the Points race having accumulated 7 points to the winners 21. Rachel Ball from Wales finished 18th.
Team Sprint
This is an event Britain has a great history in and the Juniors did that reputation no harm with a win in the straight up final. Jason Kenny started in man 1 and produced an 18.187 opening lap, a time many a senior team would be happy with, but one that also stretched the Great Britain team to the limits. Christian and Josh Hargreaves however did a good job of hanging on to make sure of the top spot in a tight finish against the Germans who only finished a few thousandths behind the Brits.
"We have practised the team sprint quite a lot on training camps" their coach Iain Dyer explained "and tried different configurations. There is still more room for experimentation however, and, of course I have two other squad members fighting for a place as well. It was though, a good performance technically".
1. GB (Jason, Chris, Josh) 47.936
2. GER (Hubner, Wachter, Rackwitz) 48.080
3. NED 50.338
Summary
After two days of competition on the track where World Junior Titles will be won and lost, the trip was an invaluable experience for the British riders. It's the second time this year they have been to the track having spent time at Easter there as well getting to know both the boards they'll be racing on and the venue itself
"The chance to race against your rivals is always a good opportunity" Iain Dyer told British Cycling. "Meeting the best that France and Germany have to offer in particular holds no fear for the sprinters now and served to be a good confidence booster six weeks away from the European Championships in Athens."
