Sir Chris Hoy will lead Great Britain’s team sprint squad at the London round of the UCI Track World Cup next month.
The four-time Olympic gold medalist is scheduled to ride alongside world champion, Jason Kenny, and Olympic silver medalist Ross Edgar in a meeting at the London Velodrome from February 17 to 19 that will double as the Olympic test event.
Great Britain’s sprint coach, Iain Dyer, told British Cycling’s website that he was pinning his hopes on a return to form by an injury-hit Edgar.
“It’s our plan to roll Ross out at man one, Jason at man two and Chris at man three at London World Cup and see what that gives us.
“Unfortunately in the last few weeks Ross has been battling against an injury so we hope that he’ll be on form for London but he might just come up a little short on time to rehabilitate the injury and progress his fitness once again,” he said.
Great Britain fielded a team of Hoy, Kenny, and Crampton at the European Championships in Apeldoorn, Holland, last October, which finished a disappointed fifith after Kenny slipped a wheel. Less than a month later, at the opening round of the 2011/12 World Cup in Astana, Kazakhstan, a line-up of Edgar, Kenny, and Jason Queally finished seventh.
Dyer admitted he had experimented with his line-up since the retirement of Jamie Staff in 2010, describing the gold medal winning trio of Staff, Kenny, and Hoy as the best in the world in each position.
“It was always going to be a very tall order to maintain that performance with different team personnel. For a large chunk of that time we have operated with Jason in one and Chris in two.
“Now those guys remain, in my opinion, the very best man two and man three in the world and we’ve ridden them out of position for a long time because a lot of the qualities that make them as good as they are in man two and man three have enabled them to be good in man one and man two respectively, but not quite as good as the very best in those positions,” he said.
Matt Crampton has been tried in position three behind Queally and Hoy, while other riders have been used in position one.
“I think as a result of that we’ve tried various different combinations, we’ve tried Matt Crampton in man three behind those two and we’ve also looked at different man one riders to see if we can push Jason and Chris back up the order and that’s been our plan for quite some time now. But good man ones don’t grow on trees and to be as strong and powerful as you need to be takes a lot of time and a lot of development as Jamie [Staff] demonstrated in Beijing,” Dyer told British Cycling.
He praised the progress made by Edgar in balancing the conflicting demands of excellence in the man one position with peak performance in the individual sprint and the keirin.
“It’s extremely difficult and rare to be a very good sprint and keirin rider and also excel in man one, so Ross Edgar has been dealing with that challenge in the last year or two and I believe at this point has shown really good development and progression in that position,” said Dyer.
The fourth and final round of the 2011/12 UCI Track World Cup will be held at the London Velodrome from February 17 to 19 2012.
