Sydney Hero Focused on Finale in Beijing
Story posted February 4, 2008
By Larry Hickmott
Here we are in Olympic year again and let us not forget the Olympics eight years ago on the other side of the World in Sydney when Chorley’s Jason Queally won the country’s first Gold of that Games and promptly found himself on the cover of all the national newspapers and splashed across our TV screens.
It was a major high for him and since then its been a roller coaster of highs and lows. For Jason, there is nothing like an Olympic Gold medal. You get the feeling talking to him that although it has been ‘nice’ to win World championship medals of all colours, the big one without a doubt is the Olympics. It is what he works for day-in, day-out.
Last Wednesday, British Cycling ventured into the track centre at the Manchester Velodrome where amidst the building going on around them for the Badminton national championships last weekend, were a few of the British team going about their training. One of those was Jason Queally.
Right: Celebrating a World Championship medal in 2005, Jason Queally is training hard to repeat that at Manchester in 2008.
For track cyclists, there is one major goal each year – the World Championships and then every four years, the Olympic Games. In between there are stepping stones like UCI World Track Cups and the Commonwealth Games as well but it is the Worlds and the Olympics which in the main is where these athletes need to perform to keep their funding in place and fulfil the buzz they need from achieving success at the highest level.
So whilst the funding is important to the riders, so is winning medals. But you need luck and Jason has had his share of good and bad. Some times you can do everything you can to stay healthy but if luck dictates you’re going to miss a major goal, then so be it and a year’s training and preparation is down the drain. This happened to Jason last year before the Track Worlds when he was ill and it meant that there was to be no highlight to his season.
Illness and injury are part and parcel of being an athlete and most go though that down time but for it to happen pre-Worlds is a major blow. Jason however, kept his focus and this winter returned to competition at the Beijing UCI World Track Cup. Jason rode the Team Sprint event which is the only option for him now that the IOC/UCI have removed the Kilometre from the Olympic schedule. The kilo is the event for which he won Gold in at Sydney.
Right of picture -- the three musketeers who dominated the Team Sprint for GB over 12 years or more and are now under threat for their places in the team by a host of young and very fast riders coming through.
In Beijing, with Chris Hoy and Craig MacLean, the three musketeers who dominated the Team Sprint for GB over 12 years or more, won the bronze medal in that event. It was a reminder of just how well these great athletes have weathered the competition from the youngsters who are now pressing for their spots at the 2008 Olympics. Whilst the teams ahead of the Brits all had new blood in them, the old faithful British riders who won a Silver in the Sydney Olympics and countless World Championship medals, were still in their fighting and showing they are not rolling over and letting the newcomers take over.
Competition within Team GB for spots in the Team Sprint began with the arrival of Jamie Staff in 2001 and he has since helped the team to World titles and World Championship medals. Ross Edgar, who has been around since then as well, has also been pressing for a spot and then Matthew Crampton arrived and is showing a lot of promise. Now GB has Jason Kenny too racing really well and David Daniel and Christian Lyte also snapping at the heels of the ‘old timers’. It has according to Jason, changed the dynamics within the team.
Competition for spots in the Team Sprint, seen as a good chance for an Olympic medal (GB are hoping to medal in 13 of the 18 events), is hotter than it has ever been as is the competition from other countries and Jason Queally, like his teammates, is giving it everything in the hope he will be amongst those on the start line in Beijing for what he says will be his last Olympics.
2005, Los Angeles and Jason is racing man two position behind Jamie Staff and ahead of Chris Hoy. In 2008, he's looking to be man three for the GB team, the place currently held by Chris Hoy.
His preparation however has not gone smoothly. Going back to Beijing and the Track Cup there, Jason admits it went ‘ok’ but for someone who sets himself very high standards, it wasn’t as good as he had hoped. “It was alright” he told us. “I rode man 2 to begin with and then man three in the final. My ride in man 2 wasn’t particularly a good ride so I got swapped for man three and that was a little better. It was okay as a result being my first World Track Cup for a year but I am always looking to win.”
Jason says that the one thing that is annoying about those performances is that his form going into Beijing was better than he showed in China on the Olympic track. “It is always disappointing if you go into something knowing you had better form before. Coming away with a bronze medal is a plus but I would like to have gone better so there are pros and cons. It was interesting to see the track though and see what Beijing is going to be about for those that get to go.”
It is quickly apparent he realises the uphill task he faces to be one of those on the plane to Beijing. “Within the Great Britain Cycling team, the track competition is getting harder, not just in the sprint squad but throughout the team. There are very few riders out there who are not being pushed to keep their spot.”
Talking more about the competition world-wide, he adds “Olympic year is always a funny year and people come out of the woodwork. There will be riders who have been on the circuit for a long time and who’ll hide away for three years and then come Olympic year, they will reappear and put an awful lot of energy and commitment into that final year and some times come away with a gold medal.”
By way of example, he says of the old enemy, the Aussies, “I didn’t think they were going to be a threat but some young lads are coming through for the first lap and showing a lot of promise. You also have the Germans as well and the French and the Dutch so it will be the usual suspects fighting out the medals in the Team Sprint and as a result, the times are getting quicker.”
“In the old days, pre-Sydney, the French were three or four tenths better than anyone else and we were fighting it out for second spot. Then in 2002 when GB defeated the French (and were World Champions) the winning nation has moved about a bit. We have had it, the Germans and the French and so things are a lot closer than they were in Sydney and before. Margins are so small, we’re looking at absolutely everything to ensure we have the best equipment, best tactics and best training that will lead to the best performance in competition.”
Part of the team’s drive to leave no stone unturned to find every thousandth of a second (Britain lost the gold in 2007 by five thousandths of a second) has seen them look at all areas to find gains and that includes equipment. Recently, whilst watching the BBC news, up popped Jason in a jet fighter and he admits he would love to have had a go in one but it was all show being seated in one of the planes.
Jason Queally was at the launch of the partnership which will see the aerospace firm BAE make its expertise available to the teams in cycling, sailing, rowing and bob skeleton.
Looking ahead to his immediate goals, Jason will be travelling to Copenhagen to race in the Science in Sport colours where his event will again be the Team Sprint. It is likely he will team up with Ross Edgar and Jason Kenny to take on the other teams from around the world as well as the one in GB colours with Chris Hoy, Craig MacLean and Jamie Staff. On his next challenge, he says “every single World Cup is a big hit and Copenhagen is no different. I have had though a problem five weeks ago where I fell off my bike (his own doing he admits) and broke my wrist and was off the bike for a few weeks.”
2005, and Jason is perhaps contemplating what might have been after showing great form in LA eight months after the Athens Olympics.
No time is ever good to break ones wrist but to do it a few months out from the World Championships when fighting hard for a spot in the British team has been a blow to Jason. His injury didn’t affect any work in the gym because as Jason revealed, he gave up doing gym work 18 months or more ago.
Jason explained that all his training is done on the bike. He uses the road work to do endurance training whilst he’ll do his strength, power and speed work on the track. “I used to go to the EIS and do some work on the static bike but with my wrist giving me grief, I have stopped doing that for now.”
Explaining more about the fact he doesn’t do any gym work, he admits “I haven’t suffered from not doing the gym work. In the latter years of my career, I’ve suffered with my back in the gym where I’d get injured and it would take me away from the bike and that is the most important thing in training. So cutting the gym out meant I was able to carry on training all the time on the bike. Its not that I don’t believe in weights as I think there is a place for them but out of necessity, I have come up with a programme that replaces what I did in the gym.”
To show how effective Jason was in Beijing despite doing away with gym work and not being as young as was, his time for the final lap (Final) was 13.624, quicker than that of the man 3 rider in the Aussie Toshiba team and quicker too than the Dutch man three rider who won the Gold. Even his man two lap time of 13.359 was comparable to many of the other leading other nations outside of the Dutch who were on a different planet.
So Jason seems to be in the ball park but will that be good enough? His goal is to secure a place in the team in Man 3 position as he explained. “I am still looking at man three to be my spot. I did look at man 2 in Beijing and that didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to so I am putting all my eggs in one basket and going for man three spot.”
“That’s a tough one” he goes on to say, “as its Chris Hoy’s spot and he is the quickest guy in the world. The bottom line is we’re all doing the best we can to be the best we can. We have trials pre Worlds, the Worlds and then probably more trials in the build up for the Olympics. If I stand any chance of going to Beijing, I need to be at or near my best for the trials.”
2005 and post Athens where despite his best ever form, things didn't work out for him, Jason gets his first rainbow jersey in the Team Sprint on top of a silver in the Kilometre.
So Jason will continue the work in the track centre at Manchester and cross his fingers that his form will come as it did in 2004 and 05 where he was in the form of his life. Since the World Championships in 2005 where he won his first rainbow jersey, he suffered the disappointment of not making the final cut for the final in the Team Sprint at the 2006 World Championships (he rode the qualifying round) and then in 2007 was ill. So it’s full steam ahead for a big push to make the team for the 2008 Track Worlds in his last year in the sport.
Asked if its hard to lift himself day-in, day-out knowing there are no guarantees he’ll be on the plane to Beijing, Jason replies, “I don’t mind the training here week in, week out. I am so fortunate to be doing something I love. I came from working full time at 25 to being a full time cyclist and I know which I prefer!”
“Motivation in the periods leading up to major competitions is not a problem at all. If anything, I am more motivated now because of the additional pressure. In the old days when there were three of us going for three spots, the pressure wasn’t as intense but nowadays, every single one of us is vying for a spot and it’s a very different environment. So I don’t struggle with training.”
Chatting about the work he does on the track, it varies depending on the phase of training he is in. One day he’ll do standing starts which at the moment are tough with his wrist still not fully fit. He’ll also do a series of seated efforts and then there are the motor chases to get the speed which he feels is going well. His training constantly evolves as major events approach and post Copenhagen he expects to go back to doing some endurance work.
One of the changes in his training programme is less time in Australia since his wife had a little boy and he wanted to spend more time at home, as do many of the family men in the squad and if its miles they need, then he like many, he’ll head for places like Majorca.
He admits despite the training treadmill and pressure that the athletes are under to fight for their spots in the team, he will be very sorry when he leaves the sport. “I will miss it” he adds. “This will be last my Olympics should I get selected and I have been fortunate to achieve what I wanted to achieve (Olympic Gold in Sydney) and we now have a system in place to bring new riders in and it will be interesting to see who makes Beijing. I think there will be a few surprises.”
Giving us an insight into how much the Olympics means, he says of his medals in 2005 at the Track Worlds “I got something from that period but it wasn’t what I wanted” and then explaining that it was a medal in Athens that was the big goal and despite having the form of his life, it wasn’t to be. Another case of how athletes do need luck as well as good form to achieve their goals.
British Cycling wishes Jason lots of luck in his quest to make the team for the Beijing Olympics and will bring you news of his achievements in Copenhagen between February 15-17.
RELATED LINKS
Home Page, Sydney World Track Cup 2007
Home Page Beijing World Track Cup
Jason Queally Archives
Jason (Queally) and the aeronautstp
2006 Interview Commonwealth Games
Other GB Member Stories
Chris Hoy looks ahead to the Track Worlds
