Great Britain Cycling Team Olympic Sprint Academy

 

Feature Posted November 24

By Larry Hickmott

 

Riders in the GB Cycling Team's Sprint Academy start their Tuesday with a Gym session under the watchful eye of National Sprint Coach Iain Dyer.

 

This year, a new Sprint Academy was introduced into the Great Britain Cycling team's Olympic Academy Programme for Under 23 riders. Many of the GB team's major Sprint stars who regularly win medals at World and Olympic competitions are in their thirties and the search is on for the talent to come along and replace them for the 2012 Olympics and beyond. 

Despite having only three '20 something' riders in the Podium Programme (Matt Crampton, Ross Edgar and Victoria Pendleton), the team has discovered a large number of talented young sprinters ready to join them in the coming years. From the British Youth (Olympic Talent Team) squad coached by Geoff Cooke, to the Olympic Development and Olympic Academy programmes, the GB Cycling team has a exciting group of talented young riders who may well be representing their country in different age groups in the coming years.

Just how good our young talent is was underlined this year at the Junior World Track Championships. We had two first year sprint Juniors winning World titles (in the Team Sprint) and a second year sprint Junior, Jason Kenny, winning no less than three titles. There was also a world title for second year Junior Anna Blyth. To try and nurture that talent, the GB team has added a Sprint Academy to its programme structure. The aim is to progress Juniors from part time training regimes on the Olympic Development Programme to being full time sprinters in the Academy.

 

Left to right: Jason, Lucy and Anna during a rest period.

The three riders who make up this year's Academy are Jason Kenny, Anna Blyth and Lucy Ayres. We went along to the Manchester Velodrome to spend time with them and see them train. Like the Endurance riders we met recently (Olympic Academy Feature), the Sprint Academy riders share two houses (girls in one, boys in the other) with riders on GB's BMX Academy. On the Tuesday we met them, the riders left their house early in the day to make sure they were at the track by 9.30am. On the 30 minute ride to the track, they had to battle their way through a freak hailstorm which was enough to test anyone's passion for their sport.

Once the riders were at the National Cycling Centre at Sportcity, it was time to get changed and into the gym (they have two sessions a week) where they worked through a series of seven or eight different elements, some so new and innovative we weren't allowed to photograph them! In all, the session was around two hours and their coach Iain Dyer was there to work with them individually and make sure that all the exercises were performed correctly, so they got the most from them and avoided injury.

And it was no easy session either. We have all seen these riders grimace as they go through pain barriers on the track when racing, but in the gym, the pain seemed even greater. It was a relentless series of different efforts and one could well understand why there were some tired bodies at the end of the session.

After their gym session was over, the riders disappeared to have lunch, prior to a track session at 2pm. Once on the Track, they were soon going though a range of different efforts: Lucy was busy doing standing starts in a Starting Gate (Team Sprint training), whilst Jason Kenny was doing standing starts without the gate (Man 2 or 3 in the Team Sprint). Anna Blyth, meanwhile, was busy doing paced efforts. These drills kept them all busy until 5pm and the end of the session. It was then time for them to get changed, before grabbing their bikes and venturing out into the winter cold and darkness for the ride home.

A typical day for these riders is packed with 'work' and, like any young person looking after themselves in work, their day doesn't end at the front door of their new home as there is cooking, washing and other chores to be taken care of. True, the lottery funding they get enables them to prepare like no other young group of sprinters has ever been able to, but it's certainly no holiday camp! After all, they have a lot to live up to following on from the current crop of senior sprinters.

At the recent Sydney UCI World Track Cup, our male sprinters won two medals in each of thesprint events - Sprint, Team Sprint and Kilometre - which shows the strength in-depth we have on the Podium programme. Now the GB team are looking to make sure that continues with its Sprint Academy riders.

After the Gym session, British Cycling spoke to the National Sprint coach Iain Dyer as well as the three  riders, Jason, Anna and Lucy:

Iain Dyer
The person responsible for the creation of the Sprint Academy programme is Iain Dyer, National Sprint coach for the Great Britain Cycling team. Talking to him after a gym training session for his riders, he explained that the aim for the Under 23 Academy has been to nurture up and coming riders' abilities so they can exist as full time athletes and help them move into a full-time regime by providing them with housing as well as catering for their education and lifestyle needs. More >>>>

Jason Kenny:

Triple World Junior Champion - The only male rider to make it into the Sprint Academy is three time World Junior Champion, Jason Kenny. The Sprint, Keirin and Team Sprint champion from the 2006 UCI World Junior Track Championships has been around for a few years now and looks very much at home wherever he is, in training or in competition. More >>>>

 

Anna Blyth:

Junior Women's World Keirin Champion - For one of the country's newest World Champions, Anna Blyth of Leeds, a place on the Sprint Academy is the culmination of a long, hard and successful year with the Great Britain Cycling team. Like the other riders eligible to apply, Anna had known in the run up to the Junior Worlds that the Sprint Academy was being set up and says of it "it was nice to know that there was another level we could aspire to." More >>>>

Lucy Ayres:
One of the country's top young female sprinters, Lucy Ayres from Wigan, has shown at the very top level she has what it takes to be a World class sprinter. Lucy is one of two female riders in the Great Britain Cycling Team's Sprint Academy and she is now settled into a routine of training hard on the road and track as well as in the gym to try and gain a place to ride the Manchester UCI World Track Cup in February. More >>>>

 

Footnote: The Sprint Academy is one of a number of new initiatives introduced this year. They include a Women's Under 23 Academy and a BMX Academy as well as the continuation of the Endurance Track/Road and Mountain Bike Academies.