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Track World Cup Round 3 - CDM
Manchester Velodrome, UK, April 9-11, 2004
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Day 3 - April 11
Staff rediscovers that winning feeling
By Gina Gershon in Manchester
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Last Christmas, champion British sprinter Jamie Staff was on the verge of throwing it all away after a mystery illness had laid him low for months. But a victory with Craig MacLean and Chris Hoy in the team sprint on the final day of the track World Cup event in Manchester has gone some way to rejuvenating the former BMX stars' hunger for success.
Staff rode in qualifying and the final, which the British team won comfortably from the Netherlands (Jan and Theo Bos and Teun Mulder) in a time of 44.568, just outside their personal best.
French trio Gregory Bauge, Florian Rousseau and François Pervis beat Germans Matthias John, Soren Lausberg and Jan van Eijden for the bronze medal. Great Britain's main rivals for this year's Olympics, Australia, did not enter a team.
Olympic kilometre champion Jason Queally made way for Hoy in the gold medal showdown as Great Britain experiment with combinations for Athens. "I'm fighting for the second man, that's the position I'm trying to make my own," Staff said. "Off the back of what I've been going through at the end of last year and earlier this year - I've been up and down, some good weeks and bad weeks - so to get two rides and come away with a gold, is good."
Staff began to feel flat after some early season racing in Australia, South Africa and Mexico and he suspected he had picked up a virus. "Things just got worse and worse," Staff said. "Towards the end of the year I went to America, I did a load of training and just went backwards. Over Christmas, mentally it was really tough on me, I was on the brink of not riding any more, it was that bad.
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"To come back and do this, I'm pretty happy and training is just starting to pick up again so fingers crossed everything will be smooth from now to the Olympics."
Medical tests never managed to pinpoint the problem but Staff appears to be back on track for the final World Cup round in Sydney and hopes to contest the World Championships in Melbourne next month.
Staff said his first World Cup appearance of the season in Manchester had boosted his confidence. "It's hard, you've been a champion, I guess, and you're at the top of your game all your life and you put a tremendous amount of pressure on yourself so, if you're not doing great times in practice and things like that, it starts getting on your mind," Staff said. "It's really hard not to let it get to you."
Competition is fierce in British sprint ranks for rides at the Olympics. And, with Queally and Hoy contenders for the kilo, not to mention MacLean who won the event in Manchester on Friday night, Staff has set his sights on the team sprint and keirin.
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"I really want to do the team because I really think we can win a gold in that," Staff said. "The kilo is going to be a lot of work. Everyone has dreams but at the same time you've got to be realistic and everyone else on the team is a little bit ahead of me at the moment. Everything would have to go perfect for me in the next few months to enable me to do the kilo, so that's a long shot.
"I'd love to do another event so the next one on the list would be the keirin. I've still got a lot to learn in that. Every time I go out and race, I cross the finish line and think, 'I should have done this, I should have done that'. With BMX, you used to race so much, you picked everything up pretty quick but with this, the races are so infrequent, it makes it hard to learn. And at the same time, you don't want to do too much racing because that interrupts all your training. So it's a hard one. I've just been watching videos - it's about all I can do."
Australia topped the nation standings for the meet with 111 points from Germany (97), Great Britain (90) and France (83).
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The Australians went 1-2 in a women's 10km scratch race, in which the group stuck together to bring about a bunch sprint for the line. Alison Wright took the honours in what turned out to be a photo finish, just edging ahead of team-mate Rochelle Gilmore. Rebecca Quinn of the United States was third.
In the women's team sprint, German pair Katrin Meinke and Susan Panzer beat France's Celine Nivert and Clara Sanchez to the gold medal, while Australians Rosealee Hubbard and Kristine Bayley held off Americans Tanya Lindenmuth and Jennie Reed for bronze.
Spain's Juan Llaneras Rosello rode a brilliant race in the men's 30km points event, picking up two laps on the field to finish with 53 points. Hong Kong rider Kam-Po Wong was second on 33 and Colby Pearce of the United States third with 30.
Photos
Images by Nick Rosenthal/www.fatnick.com
- The Aussies head off the banking
- Last lap, and the strain is showing
- The Slovakian team put the hamer down
- The Chinese team keep the pressure on
- Legs of steel
- The Greek team try to stay in line
- You can almost feel the pain the Czech riders are feeling
- U.S.A. all the way
- Getting a little bit sideways there
- The Great Britain team sprint trio, seen here during the heats
- Olympic Kilo champion Jason Queally is last man for the British Team Sprint trio who qualified for the major final in the Manchester round of the UCI World Cup track series
- The two Australian girls (Alison Wright and Rochelle Gilmore) at the top of the track went on to take first and second place, with the USA's Rebecca Quinn in third spot.
- Rochelle Gilmore tries her damnedest to get round compatriot Alison Wright... but to no avail. The final banking of the final lap of the women's points race at the Manchester world cup track meeting.
- Alison Wright (centre, winner), Rochele Gilmore (left, silver) and Rebecca Quinn (USA, bronze) look happy on the podium after the women's 10 km scratch race in Manchester.
- Top Spanish trackie Juan Llaneras leads the four-man break that gained a lap on the field in the men's points race at Manchester Velodrome. The former world track champion is an expert at taking laps, and gained two laps on the field in this race.
- Juan Llaneras gives it some stick during the points race.
- A special "Big balls" award from Fat Nick for Alexander Aeschbach; after falling heavily during the points race, Aeschbach not only got back on his bike, but continued to race aggressively during the rest of the race.
Results
Women's 10km scratch race 1 Alison Wright (Aus) 2 Rochelle Gilmore (Aus) 3 Rebecca Quinn (USA) Women's team sprint 1 Germany 34.990 (Katrin Meinke, Susan Panzer) 2 France 35.695 (Celine Nivert, Clara Sanchez) 3 Australia 35.493 (Rosealee Hubbard, Kristine Bayley) 4 USA 35.768 (Tanya Lindenmuth, Jennie Reed) Men's 30km points race 1 Juan Llaneras Rosello (Spa) 53 pts 2 Kam-Po Wong (HKg) 33 3 Colby Pearce (USA) 30 Men's team sprint 1 Great Britain 44.568 (Craig MacLean, Jamie Staff, Christopher Hoy) 2 Netherlands 45.033 (Jan Bos, Theo Bos, Teun Mulder) 3 France 45.434 (Gregory Bauge, Florian Rousseau, Francois Pervis) 4 Germany 45.907 (Matthias John, Soren Lausberg, Jan van Eijden) Nation standings 1 Australia 111 pts 2 Germany 97 3 Great Britain 90 4 France 83
