First Blood to Scotland in Team Sprint Showdown
19th of February, 2006; See www.ChrisHoy.com for the latest from the Scottish Camp
>Home Nations for Commonwealth Games
As they have many times before, the Great Britain sprint riders have based themselves in Perth (Australia) and this weekend they took advantage of a Grand Prix meeting there to split up into the countries they represent and take part in a Team Sprint warmup for the Commonwealth Games.
Everyone was taking it seriously with the Australians making sure Aussie sprint coach Martin Barras was there and Great Britain having GB Performance Manager Shane Sutton trackside looking after two teams, England and Scotland.
Come the moment of truth on the track, Scotland ran out victors just as they did riding in GB colours at the Manchester World Cup. They won their qualifying round in a new Scottish Record of 44.878 and went all the way to the final where they met England.
With the English team missing Jamie Staff who is getting ready for the Sydney World Track Cup starting on the 3rd of March, they drafted in Scottish rider Marco Librizzi and in the final, Scotland beat the English/Scottish combo clocking 44.921 against 45.237.
The win was a wonderful boost to the morale of the Scottish team, bronze medallists at the last Games, as they enter their last phase of training. As expected, World Record holder, Craig MacLean rode as man 1 in both rounds with Chris Hoy using the competition to try different positions, man 3 in the qualifier and man 2 in the final. The information gained on split times will allow the Scots to pick the fastest combination for the big test in just 25 days time.
Australia had double Olympic champion Ryan Bailey, Shaun Hopkins and Scott Sunderland but on the day were well off the pace. It is likely that Shane Kelly will ride in place of Sunderland but on the Perth showing they have some work to do in the next three weeks. The temperature in Perth for the competition was a summary 31 degrees. Amongst other teams racing were the national squads from USA and New Zealand.
The icing on the cake for Scotland was Chris Hoy winning the International Sprint Derby showing that he is going well and morale is high in the Scottish camp.
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