Fresh from topping the medal table at the European Track Championships in Switzerland, a 17-rider Great Britain Cycling Team will travel to the Alicides Nieto Patino velodrome in Cali, Colombia from 30 October to 1 November for the first of three UCI Track Cycling World Cup rounds.
Following Colombia, the series travels to Cambridge, New Zealand in December and Hong Kong in January, with the aim of qualifying places for the world championships in London and the Olympic Games in Rio.
The team
The team for Colombia is the core of a squad that won nine medals at the UEC European Track Championships at the Swiss national velodrome in Grenchen, Switzerland.
Endurance
Fresh from three gold medals in Grenchen is Laura Trott, who took European titles in the team pursuit, scratch and omnium events.
Trott will be joined by Katie Archibald, another treble European title winner, the on-form rider from Milngavie having won team pursuit, individual pursuit and elimination titles on the boards of Velodrome Suisse.
Ciara Horne also makes the squad after taking European gold and bronze in the team and individual pursuit respectively. The women’s endurance team rounded out by Elinor Barker and Joanna Rowsell Shand, both of whom showed superlative form in Switzerland.
The men’s endurance squad also reprises the squad from Grenchen, minus Matt Gibson and London Six-Day heroes Chris Latham and Ollie Wood.
Sir Bradley Wiggins and Owain Doull were the core of the gold medal-winning team pursuit squad few weeks ago, coach Heiko Salzwedel using the Euros to explore the wealth of choices on offer.
Steven Burke, Jon Dibben, Matt Gibson and Andy Tennant were all used in the three rides and time will tell whether Cali will see further experimentation, after a final ride that saw Wiggins, Doull, Tennant and Dibben record an impressive 3:55 for the 4000-metre effort.
Dibben also took bronze in the omnium in Switzerland, thanks to a gutsy ride in the final points race and will once again fly the flag for Britain in the six-discipline event, with Ed Clancy still recovering from a back injury.
Sprint
The British squad will hope to see improvements in their sprint fortunes after a European championships that saw the fast-twitch riders return without a medal.
Philip Hindes, Jason Kenny, Lewis Oliva and Matt Crampton comprise the men’s team. Callum Skinner is once again missing from the squad as he was in Switzerland, where Hindes, Kenny and Oliva missed a team sprint medal ride by just 0.09 seconds.
Fifth place was the best Great Britain finish in the individual sprint, Kenny winning the minor final after coming up against stiff opposition in the form of the Netherlands’ Jeffrey Hoogland earlier in the contest.
Jess Varnish and Katy Marchant also missed the team sprint medal rides by a whisker in Switzerland and will be joined again in the women’s sprint camp by Victoria Williamson despite a dramatic crash in the keirin in Grenchen.
The competition
For the first time this season, Great Britain Cycling Team will face full-strength world-class opposition, with strong outfits from Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere giving the squad a true chance to benchmark their performances.
Five-time Olympic champion Anna Meares heads up a formidable Australian squad that comes fresh from winning 17 gold medals at the recent Oceania Track Championships.
New Zealand will major on the team sprint, with world championship silver medallists Eddie Dawkins, Ethan Mitchell and Sam Webster spearheading the squad.
Elia Viviani leads the Italian challenge after a successful defence of his European omnium crown, while the Netherlands showed their form in Switzerland and will be keen to impress on the world stage.
The Dutch were particularly formidable in the sprint, Elis Ligtlee and Jeffrey Hoogland helping the team in orange to equal Great Britain’s total European medal haul.
The venue
The Alicides Nieto Patino velodrome in Cali has been a regular stop on the UCI Track Cycling World Cup, having last staged a round of the series in January 2015. The venue also played host to the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2014.
The Cali track is a 250-metre wooden surface with a maximum banking of 46 degrees, contained within a building best-known for its open-sided structure, where changing weather conditions can play a key part in the outcome of the racing.
Schedule
The time in Cali is five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Friday 30 October
Women’s team pursuit
Men’s team pursuit
Women’s team sprint
Men’s team sprint
Men’s points race
Saturday 31 October
Women’s sprint
Women’s omnium (events 1-3)
Men’s omnium (events 1-3)
Men’s keirin
Men’s individual pursuit
Women’s scratch race
Sunday 1 November
Men’s sprint
Women’s omnium (events 4-6)
Men’s omnium (events 4-6)
Women’s keirin
Men’s Madison
How to follow the racing
- Reports, results, images and reaction will appear on the British Cycling website
- Follow @BritishCycling on Twitter for updates
- Live coverage on Sunday 1 November of the final day of competition, including highlights from previous days, from 9pm UK time via UCI You Tube channel.
