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World Track Championships - CM
Melbourne, Australia, May 26-30, 2004
Tales from the track
News and gossip from day 3 of the Melbourne World Track Championships
By Karen Forman in Melbourne
Melbourne big chance for 2009 World Championships
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Melbourne looks to be in with a top chance to host the World Road Cycling Championships in 2009 or 2010.
UCI president Hein Verbruggen told a press conference at Vodafone Arena tonight that he had been taken to see some possible courses during his visit for the World Track Championships and "Victoria has an excellent pro-sport climate".
"Melbourne is a very important candidate. We would really enjoy to come here and have the road world championship."
Melbourne applied to host the world road championship earlier this year, after the UCI announced last year that it would go outside of Europe with the world road event every seven or eight years.
"The next time will be in 2009 or 2010 and Melbourne is a very important candidate," he said. "We have also had interest from Western Australia in hosting mountain bike world championships and with the high level of track cycling in this country, we think we have to come here at least once a year, either with a World Cup round, world championships or junior world championships."
Meanwhile, the new year-round track calendar announced previously by the UCI would not adversely affect the Six-Days in Europe, UCI vice president Ray Godkin said.
"We have always appreciated the Six-Days are extremely popular in Germany," he said. "But frankly you see 24-30 riders that can continue to compete without any doubt. It's impossible to make a calendar function for 24-30 riders but we will do our utmost to safeguard them."
Speaking generally about the UCI's plans to reinvigorate the sport of track cycling after several years of investigation and trials, Verbruggen said it would not be the moving of the World Championships to March that was the most important change, nor the introduction of the Track World Cup series that was the most important.
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"The most important is that we will have an international calendar all year around," he said.
"We really want a year round sport. We realised that winter in Europe is summer in Australia. The fact we now have the World Championships in March does not mean it has become a winter sport. We are now going to have a rich calendar for 12 months and we are encouraging people to register new races on the calendar."
Verbruggen said the new year-around calendar should culminate in the World Cup four months before March when the World Championships would be held. The first of the 2005 World Cup events will be held in November 2004 (venue still to be announced), followed by Los Angeles in December, Manchester in January and Sydney in February.
"We are extremely confident that this will work," he said. "We have seen confirmation that track cycling is getting strong again. Holland is coming back, Belgium, also others like Poland and the Ukraine. Also Japan is becoming very important, especially with broadcasting."
Figures presented to the conference revealed the increase in interest in track cycling as a sport. In 2002 28 nations were competing. That rose to 39 in 2003 and 43 this year. Competitor numbers rose from 146 in 2002 to 221 this year.
Broadcasting hours also increased, Verbruggen said.
Day 3 News from the Melbourne World Track Championships
By Karen Forman in Melbourne
- She finished a minute and 21 seconds behind the fastest qualifier, which left her in 21st (last) place and not able to move forward to the first round.That meant Algerian rider Cherifa Adda was still a very long way from her dream of Olympic selection, but still the proud 40 year old could not wipe the smile off her elated face at Melbourne's Vodafone Arena velodrome today.
- Melbourne looks to be in with a top chance to host the World Road Cycling Championships in 2009 or 2010. UCI president Hein Verbruggen told a press conference at Vodafone Arena tonight that he had been taken to see some possible courses during his visit for the World Track Championships and "Victoria has an excellent pro-sport climate".
- Elena Tchalykh knew it would be difficult to win a gold medal in the women's individual pursuit at the 2004 World Track Championships - because everyone was there with an Olympic dream just like her own.The 30 year old Russian has contested every world championships since 1990, when she won the individual pursuit in England. While she hoped she might be in with a chance, she had been realistic about her chances of becoming the world's best again.
- Two times Olympic sprint champion and twice world keirin champion, Jens Fiedler, will probably swap cycling for coaching and sport management and retire at the end of the year.The much decorated rider from Chemnitz, south of Berlin, who won gold in the sprints in Barcelona and Atlanta and was world keirin champion in 1998 and 1999, says he has already achieved all his dreams and it looks like the 2004 season could be his last.
