GB Olympic Academy Ready to Go for 2007

 

Jonny Bellis leads Steven Burke and Alex Dowsett in the Team Pursuit. All three are part of the new intake for the Olympic Academy programme.

 

British Cycling took the opportunity to talk to Olympic Academy manager Rod Ellingworth whilst with the GB team in Austria about his program for next year. There has been a new intake of riders recently with Jonny Bellis, Steven Burke, Russell Hampton and Alex Dowsett joining Ben Swift, Andy Tennant, Ross Sander, Ian Stannard, and Geraint Thomas to make nine riders in all.

The new academy will kick off on the 5th of November which is when they'll be moving into the houses in Manchester and then shortly after that, start training in Manchester. During November and December, Andy Tennant and Geraint Thomas will be away as they have made the long list for the 2007 World's so they'll be off to Australia with Simon Jones whilst the other guys will be in Manchester doing drills.

"It's like a boot camp" Rod admits "and we'll be going back to the basics of the Academy for just under two months. They will be full time athletes and will have an education program as well with Nigel Mitchell for nutritional stuff, Italian lessons and food hygiene too."

The winter training for them will mainly comprise of track drills with some road work of course. A typical day Rod told us might be 10 5k Team Pursuits in the morning and then two Madison sessions in the afternoon so you could be looking at 100k on the track as well as riding to and from the Velodrome.

The racing goals will be the Los Angeles and Manchester World Track Cups and then before that some UIV Madison racing at the Amsterdam, Dortmund and Gent Sixes. "We'll be doing a little less racing than we did last winter" says the programme manager.

Then at the beginning of March, those who don't get selected for the Track Worlds, will go straight to Italy whilst those who do will concentrate on the Track Worlds. "The pilot programme we had in Italy this year has been a success" Rod says. "All the background work which we did with Max has gone really really well. The bike racing has gone better than expected and the lads are well up for it".

The performance goal for the riders, one of them, will still be the European Track Championships which may well include the Road championships as well for the Time Trial. "There will be a little more of a focus on the road next year" says Rod.

"This new group, are further advanced than the year before. They understand more about the academy for instance because it's been up and running for a while now and they can see that. Physically, Darren (Tudor) has pushed them more and technically too he has pushed them more."

One of the changes the Academy has introduced is to make room for a rider still at school to be on the programme in a part time capacity. "Alex is doing his A levels which is something he has to complete so he'll carry on to finish school and then he will become full time."