"Queen of the Track" for GB's cyclingteam, Laura Trott, was a double gold winner in the second leg of the UCI TrackWorld Cup in London at the Lee Valley Park velodrome at the weekend. It cappeda solid team performance as GB won four golds overall (the others were in themen's team pursuit and madison events) and a bronze in the women's points racefor Elinor Barker. That represented an improvement on their return in the firstround of the World Cup last month in Guadalajara, when they came home with twogolds and two silvers.
Thedouble London 2012 Olympic winner was the home team's class act once again,with Trott winning both the women's omnium and team pursuit events.
Her joy inthe pursuit was shared with her fellow team members of Katie Archibald, ElinorBarker and Ciara Horne, who had replaced Joanna Rowsell for the final.
Technical Director,Australian Shane Sutton, acclaimed the key role she performs within the overallsquad as someone to inspire the whole team through her achievements. Allied toa bubbly demeanour there is a steely determination and a wise head beyond heryears, as evidenced by the manner in which she calmly controlled the finalevent of the omnium the 100- lap points race (in a slightly adjusted format torecent years), by "marking" the moves made by her closest competitorJolien D'Hoore of Belgium and keeping herself just out of reach of the would be"chasers".
By taking the maximum 5 points for the penultimate sprint,she all but ensured victory (barring someone gaining an unlikely lap on thefield or Trott falling) with ten laps remaining and wisely settled back intothe pack as the final sprint was fought out. A comparison of the stature of thesilver and bronze athletes on the podium illustrated a distinct difference insize, but what she lacks in bulk she more than makes up for in sheer talent andthe omnium is clearly an event that suits her abilities.
She had always lookedto be in a strong position in the multi-discipline event, winning the Scratchand the Pursuit, and staying in the top three in the Elimination race and 500 metres.
GB’s men’s team pursuit quartet took advantage when thefavourites Australia suffered a puncture in the first round that put paid totheir chances.
GB went on to beat New Zealand in the final, as Steven Burke,Mark Christian, Owain Doull and Andrew Tennant’s time for the 4km distance wasslower than the Aussies had recorded in qualifying. That mattered not to theBrits, but is clearly an indication that they still have some way to go to consistentlychallenge them when fate does not intervene.
The men’s pairing ofMark Christian and Owain Doull took the other gold for GB in the Madison event.Trott’spartner and fellow Olympic gold medallist, Jason Kenny was less successful inthe meeting as due to illness earlier in the week he made the decision to restleading up to the event to ensure his attendance in the meeting. The lack ofwork clearly had its effect as he failed to make an impression on the medal positionsin his events, with the men’s team sprint seeing GB manage a disappointingseventh place.
Lookingforward to the next two years and Rio in 2016, it looks promising for GB'sathletes in the Track cycling events, with many stars still to (hopefully) slotback into the team. Besides the expectation that Kenny will come back to histop form, Sir Bradley Wiggins is expected to fit back into the team pursuitteam at some point to challenge the ominous Australians and Becky James wouldstrengthen the women's sprint team's chances significantly.
Thefinal round of the World Cup sees the teams travel to Colombia in January ofnext year to complete the three race series.
