More Than Just A Chance To Ogle

My calf seems oddly better this morning. This is a good job too, because the rolling pin is sitting on the bookcase winking at me. I can see it’s itching for another go.

I test my fitness with a limp around the park with the dogs before we then get in the car and head up the M6 to the Manchester Velodrome. It’s round one of the World Track Cup and we’re becoming regulars. We arrive later than planned due to a predictable M6 nightmare where they close a lane on us and cause a 45 minute tailback.

As we kind of expected Great Britain dominated the day. Although even Chris Hoy had us worried at times. He was not leading from the front in the early rounds of the Keirin as he usually does but instead he was leaving it late and coming from the back to the win those races. Still, win he did, of that there’s no doubt. He certainly turned on the style in the final though, leaving everyone for dead including current world champion Maximilian Levy of Germany, the man who has the misfortune of next year having to defend the world title he took whilst Hoy was out injured.



Victoria Pendleton looked rusty in the sprint and had to fight decidedly hard to beat Olga Panarina of Belarus in the semi-final, losing the first race of three before winning the other two. She was also taken to a third and deciding race in the final by China's Shuang Guo before winning by the narrowest of margins.

She will need to keep looking over her shoulder as we witnessed the next generation of sprinters in Jess Varnish and Becky James, who although eliminated in the early rounds then ended battling through to set up an intriguing head to head for the lower points placings.

Here is the future of British track sprinting



Oops, none of the stars seem to have any qualms about stripping off in front of the crowd. Here they are again dressed and about to do battle.



Probably the most impressive performances came from a very tactically astute Chris Newton who was on top form to win the Points Race and then there was Geraint Thomas. Thomas is already an Olympic gold medallist in the team pursuit but doesn’t usually ride the individual version. However in only his third race in the individual he dominated the competition. In qualifying he set the second fastest individual pursuit time ever, bettered only by Chris Boardman's world record in August 1996, in what is now an outlawed riding position. He then went on to catch his opponent Belgium's Dominique Cornu in the final with two laps of the race remaining. Naturally he’s gutted that the event is set to be dropped from the Olympics

Then finally David Daniell, starting third last, set the fastest time in the 1km time-trial but was then beaten by the last lap spurt put on by, the last man to ride, current world champion Stefan Nimke, of Germany. Still silver behind the world champ isn’t too shifty. Keep a tight hold on that title Stefan, he’s coming to get you.

So a good day out, more than just a chance to ogle the Lycra clad women, while L ogles the Lycra clad men obviously, a great days racing.