GB Returns to Beijing Chasing more Gold
Story posted January 9, 2009
By Larry Hickmott
Next weekend, 16th to the 18th of January, five riders from the Great Britain Cycling team will be racing on the Olympic Velodrome in Beijing for the next round of the UCI World Track Cup.
The riders, Chris Newton (read the interview) Rob Hayles, Peter Kennaugh, Mark Christian and Luke Rowe will be competing in the Endurance events and having been training hard for the event at the Manchester Velodrome and will be putting the final touches to their form at Revolution 23 on Saturday night. Of the five riders, two are from GB’s Olympic Podium Programme (Hayles and Newton) and the other three are Olympic Academy riders (Kennaugh, Rowe and Christian.
Madison
For two of the riders, Rob Hayles and Peter Kennaugh, the World Cup will see them continue to work on their Madison event ahead of the World Championships. Their coach, Rod Ellingworth explained that the goal in Beijing is simple enough, to go out and better the performance in Cali (6th).
Unlike previous years where riders have gone into a World Track Championships with little racing in the Madison event during the weeks leading up to the event, this year the team are giving both Rob and Peter a lot of opportunities to race Madison events. That will include a spell in Australia in the weeks prior to the World Championships where one of the high lights will be the notable event in the Aussie calendar, the Bendigo Madison which former World Champion Franco Marvulli is just one of the stars expected to be racing with Hayles and Kennaugh along with all the top Aussie riders.
During December, prior to the Cali World Track Cup, both Rob and Peter worked on a lot of skills for the Madison and one of those was gaining a lap and come Cali, that work came in really handy as they did just that with a lap to spare, gaining the lap in the same number of laps they had trained to do it in training.
“Technically, Cali was pretty good” former World Madison Champion Rob Hayles explained in training this week. “We got the lap which is what we have been training for. Going into the race, we wanted to get a top 10 and as it was there were only 10 teams and we finished sixth.”
The GB riders scored points in the first two sprints and then gained a lap on their own in the second half of the race. “We scored well early on and then just missed out later on when I felt pretty ropey after the first quarter of the race and then rode myself back into it and was better at the end.”
“Cali went to exactly to plan in as much as we did what we had been training for which was the lap gain. We’d been practicing doing efforts over 12 laps and Peter attacked with 13 laps to go and I got on with half a lap to go!”
Rod added that even if they had not gained the lap, they would still have finished 6th but it was important to work on the drills they had trained for in training. To learn from the racing opportunity. The journey to Cali in Columbia was a long way as well and not just in hours on planes but with all the changes of planes that had to be made and the waiting in between.
“I knew I needed a bigger hit out after all the work we had done so I rode the Scratch race the night before and said I was going to make one effort and gamble on the finish which didn’t go my way. I made the effort halfway through the race which didn’t come off when no-one came with me and that was my one effort and after that I just rolled in for the finish.”
“In hindsight I should have raced it out and gone in and opened up myself fully because all we had done up until then was a little bit of track time and rollers. We didn’t have our road bikes with us so we put a massive gear on our race bikes to warm up on but with these wheels and tyres, there is still not a lot of resistance.”
On the learning process with the Madison, Rob explained “Peter and I are going through all the procedures of learning about this event along with Matt (Parker) and Rod (Ellingworth) instead of just rocking up and racing as we have in the past. I have ridden a lot of them in the past and part of the process is me giving them the knowledge I have built up as well as learning myself more about the event and in more detail.”
“Prior to the Worlds, we’re going to Australia just to get the racing in together -- holding hands basically” he said cheekily. “We’re nitpicking at the race just as we have and are still doing at the TP (Team Pursuit) and Team Sprint events where we have shown ourselves to be the best and we’re going down that route with the Madison.”
“It is quite interesting working on it this way after having ridden it for so many years and there are a few things I have been doing because they are the best way to do them but we have also seen that there are other things I can improve on.”
“We did four weeks of predominantly doing Madison work leading up to Cali and now we’re back into TP mode which suits our fitness goals for going into Beijing. I have just come off the back of a steady Christmas before having a few heavy days on the road.”
Christmas Rob explained was celebrated as ever but being a family man, the celebrations were not quite the same as they used to be. He also found time to get on his bike although the weather was not being kind.
“It was too cold to do too much too hard work and it was a bit of a shock coming in here (the Velodrome) today doing full blown efforts.” His training on the track when we spoke on January 5 was the first since a session of track training just after Cali.”
It has been a busy week as well with split sessions and to cap it off, a night of racing on Saturday evening at Revolution 23.
Peter Kennaugh
Peter back in his junior days racing in the rainbow jersey... he now wants a senior one to add to the collection.
Rob’s partner on the track for the Madison, British Madison Champion and Olympic Academy rider Peter Kennaugh, had a different start to his World Cup in Cali when he started off on day 1 with a Silver medal in the Points race.
Talking about that event, the young Isle of Man rider who is expected to have a great year on the road and track in 2009, says of the Cali Points race, “I felt strong in that race but just lacked a little bit of top end in the sprints. I was quite pleased with the result though and going into the last sprint, I didn’t realise I was level on points with the leader. I thought I couldn’t win and if I had realised I could have won, I’d have probably put more effort into the last sprint!”
Speaking to Rod Ellingworth, who was trackside with Peter in Columbia, he explained at the time in the race coming up the last sprint, the place was erupting with noise as a Columbian rider was leading and the coach was unable to get Peter up to speed with who was leading and there was no scoreboard either for Peter to see for himself. And with such noise, the commentary also didn’t help as Peter was unable to hear anything on the track.
The team though were pleased with his effort after such a long flight and limited training prior to the event. Talking about the warm-up to the race, Peter explained “I did one hard effort to get the travel out of the legs and went into the race with my own game plan. I tried to do the best I could by riding like I ride most Points races by watching what everyone was doing and then start racing. I started racing full on for the third sprint (gained 5 points for the win) and then gained two laps.”
The Points race though was just the starter for Peter and it was the Madison race which was the focus. Talking about the Madison in Cali, the current British champion says “that was a good experience as well and showed the training we had been doing is working.”
Peter showed with his late attack that he is not afraid to wait until the right moment and that he had the patience to wait until he felt it was right for not just himself to attack but also his partner Rob. “I personally think the Madison is the hardest race at World Track Cups because you not only have to be so aware of what is going on around the track but you’re also trying to ream yourself for 160 laps.”
“In the Madison you really have to have tour wits about you. You’re constantly looking over your shoulder and even when you’re out of the race resting, you’re still looking for your partner and seeing what is going on and thinking ‘do I need to slow down or speed up to time the sprints right’”.
“I have learnt that communication is really important and that you have to look after each other.”
Overall, the Cali World Cup was certainly an interesting experience as Peter explained. “The journey was okay but there was a lot of hanging around going through passport controls and so on. Just going to Columbia though was a massive experience seeing how they live there. We had college students assigned to help us and talking to them I found out it was a totally different lifestyle over there. It was certainly different! If they say the bus is coming in 10 minutes, its half an hour. They are so relaxed!”
“I really enjoyed it.”
Peter seems to have also enjoyed his Christmas training with the ‘local cycling mafia’ on the island. “Over Christmas I did some mega training with Cav (Mark Cavendish), Jonny (Jonny Bellis), my little brother (Tim), Chris Whorrall, Mark Christian and a few good local lads who like to get stuck in. One ride we did was 155k over 5 hours and we pretty much smashed it every day which left me ill so it was a learning experience as well!”
“Over there though, when you have pro tour riders, academy riders and ODP riders, everyone wants to train hard and had good motivation. The roads are great as well like we have these little Paris Roubaix lanes and once you get onto those roads, you just want to race. I really enjoyed the Christmas break.”
Little wonder Peter was showing good form in training where double sessions this week have kept the riders busy before racing this weekend at Revolution and then the week after in Beijing.
You can follow the race results from Beijing on www.tissottiming.com and we’ll do what we can to bring you news from the camp either during or after the racing.
Good luck to them all next week in China!
RELATED LINKS
The Madison Chase -- Peter Kennaugh