Victoria Pendleton (England) (Image credit: Tour of Japan)
Former world women’s sprint champion, Victoria Pendleton, has been carefully preparing for the upcoming UCI Track Cycling World Cup series, which kicks off in Sydney, Australia on November 17. Pendleton could also feature in the brand new women’s two-rider team sprint event, which appears on the event schedule for the first time.
Pendleton’s performances on the track at world level have been steadily improving over the past five years. "I have been to five world championships, and I have been in the top four in the last four and top two in the last two. I am expecting to ride the sprint, 500m time trial and Keirin at the world cup events and maybe the team sprint if they can find me a partner. There are a few girls training at the BC academy at the moment and we could ride the team sprint as well depending on how they are going. That would be wicked."
After Sydney, the world cup series moves to Moscow for round 2 in December, then to Los Angeles in January before concluding in Pendleton's home country with the Manchester round. The 26-year-old from Stotfold in Bedfordshire was pipped to the sprint gold at Bordeaux earlier this year by Natallia Tsylinskaya. How nice would it be to get revenge over the Belarusian in front of a home crowd in Manchester? "It would be very, very nice," continued Pendleton: "Obviously it would be even better to beat her in Palma and win the rainbow jersey. She is very strong and experienced but I know what I have to do to beat her and fingers crossed that I can get it right on the day."
