GB Womens Endurance Riders

 

Manchester World Track Cup Features

By Larry Hickmott

return to ... Training Thursday Manchester World Track Cup

 

For the last 10 days, three of the Women endurance riders in the Great Britain Cycling team have been training in Newport and tonight (Thursday), arrived in Manchester for the World Cup. BritishCycling.org.uk caught up with them at their hotel to see how they are all going prior to a major goal in their programmes.

Rebecca Romero
Olympic Silver medallist in Rowing, Rebecca Romero has come a long way in a short space of time. How many cyclists would love to have been racing less than a year and already be posting World Class times on the track. Well, Rebecca is doing just that.

"Being fast tracked onto the plan, I needed to be performing at the Nationals and second place there put me in a really promising position" She told us. "Since then I have moved on and was given an opportunity to race at Moscow (World Track Cup) and I loved the whole experience. Performing kind of well and breaking the 3.40 barrier was significant for me. I see the 3.35 to 3.40 mark as being world class but the ultimate aim is to ride at the 3.30 to 3.35 mark."

"To go to my first World Cup and get a medal was great and I just want to go on from there and come to Manchester and see how much quicker I can go and see where that puts me in the competition. So I am looking forward to seeing what step up I have made and hopefully medal ling again because through out my sporting career, I have medalled at every World Cup I have been too so I don't want to miss out!"

Asked is she surprised at the rapid rie up the ranks, Rebecca says "When I first started rowing as an 18 year old, I progressed from novice to a junior worlds medallist in eight months so I had a fast progression there and from there, I was under 23 world champion at aged 20 and then Olympic silver medallist at 24. So I have achieved success at an early age."

"Coming into cycling, I haven't got the background of the sport, but I have a lot in place already such as the athlete mindset and physiology. I didn't expect to be making as rapid progress as I have though. My goals are constantly changing because of it and the successes I want now are getting bigger and bigger because of it."

"I can see that the standard required to being an Olympic medal winner or even Olympic champion is within reach because if I put the work in, I can't see any massive limitations that will be holding me back from achieving that."

Rebecca is also taking a liking to the lifestyle of a cycling athlete saying "the regime in cycling is a lot more personal. Everything I do is suited towards me and then when we come into a team environment such as the training camp we have just had and are mixing with the other athletes of different ages doing different events, it brings a whole freshness to it. And being with the younger athletes who were the same age as me when I started in sport, gives me sense of what I have achieved and where I have got to. And its fun because there is an excitement about their training."

"When you get older as an athlete and training becomes monotonous, you want that excitement you had when you first started out as a first time athlete. So being around these young athletes does makes it more enjoyable."

The run up to the Manchester World Track Cup though has not been trouble free for the Marlow based cyclist. "I haven't had the greatest run in to this competition. I came from a training camp in Manchester and something was happening in my legs and I was flying. I couldn't explain it."

"The times were faster and it was easier and then I came down with a cold and chest infection and was out of training for a week. So I got back into training at the track last Saturday and all I was I thinking was 'please let me be where I was'. I am still confident I have some form there but not having had any race pace pursuits, I know its going to hit me hard in qualifying!" We wish Rebecca lots of luck in the competition.


Wendy Houvenaghel
The rider from the South West of England has carried on where she left off last year by winning medals in this years World Cup competitions in Sydney (Silver) and Moscow (Gold). Talking to us Wendy explains "I feel I am in more of a justified position this time to be holding the World Cup leaders jersey given the times I am doing now compared to the times I was doing last year."

"I rode in Sydney in the first round of the World Cup and got the silver medal and was only .9 of second slower than the winner in both rounds compared to my previous performance six months earlier at the Commonwealth Games where I was caught by the same rider. That alone shows I have improved significantly."

"I am certainly making progress which is part and parcel of the preparation for getting a ride in Beijing. I still have work to do and am working constantly to improve my times further. I have been full time since the beginning of August 2006 and am pleased with the progress I have made in that time."

"My improvements I feel are mostly down to me being able to train consistently and rest consistently. It also helps there is some structure to my training with the pursuit in mind. Before hand, I had not really done pursuit specific training except for the run up to the Commonwealth Games and it has been good to get that now as its certainly working for me."

And her hopes for Manchester? "My hopes at Manchester are to win the Pursuit and I would like to be the World Cup champion again. Nothing is ever set in stone and there are some good athletes here I will be coming up against, so it won't be easy."

Personal Bests
"Over the last 10 days I have been training in Newport which has been hard following the training in Majorca, I have achieved some personal bests at a few different distances including one for the standing 3k, a dress rehearsal for the World Cup."


Wendy admits though, at Manchester, she doesn't have a specific target time and will be just going out there to race the clock and try and get the fastest time she possibly can. "I am not going out on a schedule this time and instead going to race myself."

Wendy also knows that there is in the team a rider capable of beating her and says of the competition between her and Rebecca, "training with Rebecca has helped my own training and I feel we do push ourselves more than if we were training by ourselves. So it is good that both of us are up there on the World stage. It was very close in Moscow between us and great to have an all British final which was really pleasing for the both of us."

Finally, we asked what it was like being a full time athlete? "It takes a bit of getting used" Wendy admits "Going from one life as a dentist and completely changing my life style around to be a professional athlete. It is not an easy thing to do to become so dedicated to something that you make sacrifices that you have never made before for this one sporting event (Beijing). And it does affect the whole of my lifestyle, not just one small area of it but the success has helped me feel I have made the right step."


Lizzy Armitstead
A junior medal winner at the World Championships in 2005, the Manchester World Track is a big step up for the Otley cyclist who is a first year senior. Being part of the Olympic Academy, the bunch race rider is starting to make progress, riding bigger gears and seeing faster times in training.

The Manchester World Track Cup will see her competing in her first World Cup and among the crowd will be quite a few people from Otley in Yorkshire coming to see her race, family, friends from school as well as riders from her old club and of course the boyfriend - Adam Blythe. Explaining what she has done to prepare for the Manchester World Track Cup, Lizzy explained,

"I went to Majorca on a ten day training camp with the seniors and did a lot of road miles and have then been in Newport for 10 days sharpening my speed and getting that sparkle back."

"The times I am doing in training says that I am going well. I was mainly doing speed work like team pursuit drills and getting used to being on the lo-pro again. Then after that, I was doing paced work and jumps from behind the derny before I started tapering on Tuesday by just doing flying 200 metre efforts and roller race warmups where I was going as fast as I have ever gone even though I didn't feel good so that's a good sign."

Lizzy though admits she does lack race practice. "I did a few track leagues before Christmas but haven't done much since but I have a strategy for the Points race on Friday and hopefully it will just come to me naturally."

"This World Cup is a complete unknown to me though and I will know better where I stand after the qualifiers. Its my first World Cup and senior race at this level and I don't know any of the girls out there so after the qualifiers I'll be able to tell whether it is going to be a race of survival or one where I can get something out of it."

"Its very frustrating being still at school and am looking forward to moving in to the Academy when I finish school in June." Good luck to Lizzy!