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Sydney Track World Cup - CDM
Sydney, Australia, May 14 - 16, 2004
Men's Sprint
Training opportunity leads to sprint gold medal for Maclean
By Karen Forman in Sydney
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Scottish rider Craig Maclean wasn't meant to ride the sprint at the Sydney round of the UCI Track World Cup. In fact the 2002 world team sprint champion wasn't meant to ride the Sydney fixture at all. He was here just to train for the world championships in Melbourne.
Even when the opportunity arose to have a start, Maclean still thought he would do it just for the training. But his form was too good and before he knew it, he was in too deep to pull out. Lucky, because he won.
The 32 year old Maclean, who is also a kilo rider, picked up the gold medal after just pipping Spaniard José Antonio Villanueva on the line to win the second round of the final of the men's sprint and the gold medal tonight. Takashi Kaneko of Japan took the bronze medal.
"Obviously there isn't a full field here," he told Cyclingnews. "And it's a pity Sean Eadie didn't get through to the final. He has ridden very well, really. After all, it's only been a month since he got back on the bike (after a year off with a knee injury) and he still produced a good time. He has got a long time yet (to get faster) before Athens."
Maclean said he thought another Australian, Jobie Dajka, would be a rider to watch at the world championships, particularly as he had just returned from the Japanese keirin series and appeared to be firing.
"The French, well, we haven't seen much of those this year but the Germans have a full sized squad so I think they will be the main ones to watch."
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Maclean, who is based with the British national team in Manchester, arrived in Australia on Tuesday and said he felt he was over the jetlag. He will contest the teams sprint tomorrow and is hoping for Olympic qualification "to take the pressure off".
"Team sprint is my thing; I don't normally do the sprint," he said. "I will be riding the kilo at the worlds."
Sprint? Kilo? Usually in cycling it's a case of never the twain shall meet? "Yeah, it's a bit weird," said Maclean. "I've been doing the team sprint for the past two years, as lead up man, which means I only had to be fit for 250 metres! But then I won the kilo at the Manchester world cup then I did a good time at the nationals in the kilo so I got a chance at an individual gold at the Olympics."
He says he also wouldn't mind having a go at the keirin sometime, although the team sprint and the kilo are his focus.
It seems Maclean has been multi-disciplined throughout his career. He first climbed aboard a BMX bike when he was 12 and raced until he was 15. Then he stopped riding, went to university "and did the stuff you're not supposed to do" until he was 21 and started riding a racing bike recreationally. That lead to racing and when he was 24 he became a sprint specialist.
In 1995 he was a member of the national squad, he took his first world championship in Manchester in 1996 and has collected one "pretty much every year since then."
Results
Qualification Flying 200m 1 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) 10.359 (69.505 km/h) 2 Damian Zielinski (Poland) 10.460 (68.834 km/h) 3 René Wolff (Germany) 10.477 (68.722 km/h) 4 Matthias John (Germany) 10.483 (68.683 km/h) 5 Sean Eadie (Australia) 10.518 (68.454 km/h) 6 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 10.526 (68.402 km/h) 7 Ahmed Lopez (Cuba) 10.588 (68.002 km/h) 8 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 10.607 (67.880 km/h) 9 Jamie Staff (Great Britain) 10.608 (67.873 km/h) 10 Grzegorz Krejner (Poland) 10.641 (67.663 km/h) 11 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) 10.653 (67.587 km/h) 12 Tim Veldt (Netherlands) 10.751 (66.971 km/h) 13 Dean Edwards (South Africa) 10.872 (66.225 km/h) 14 Andrei Vynokurov (Ukraine) 10.890 (66.116 km/h) 15 Andrew Lakatosh (USA) 10.924 (65.910 km/h) Round of 18 Heat 1 1 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) 10.974 (65.610 km/h) 2 Morne Blignaut (South Africa) Round of 18 Heat 2 1 Damian Zielinski (Poland) 11.161 (64.510 km/h) 2 Adam Ptacnik (Czech Republic) Round of 18 Heat 3 1 René Wolff (Germany) 11.123 (64.731 km/h) 2 Labros Vasilopoulos (Greece) Round of 18 Heat 4 1 Matthias John (Germany) 11.006 (65.419 km/h) 2 Andrew Lakatosh (USA) Round of 18 Heat 5 1 Sean Eadie (Australia) 10.922 (65.922 km/h) 2 Andrei Vynokurov (Ukraine) Round of 18 Heat 6 1 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 11.681 (61.639 km/h) 2 Dean Edwards (South Africa) Round of 18 Heat 7 1 Ahmed Lopez (Cuba) 11.332 (63.537 km/h) 2 Tim Veldt (Netherlands) Round of 18 Heat 8 1 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 10.819 (66.550 km/h) 2 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) Round of 18 Heat 9 1 Grzegorz Krejner (Poland) 10.975 (65.604 km/h) 2 Jamie Staff (Great Britain) 1/8 Final Heat 1 1 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) 10.822 (66.531 km/h) 2 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) 1/8 Final Heat 2 1 Damian Zielinski (Poland) 11.937 (60.317 km/h) 2 Adam Ptacnik (Czech Republic) 1/8 Final Heat 3 1 René Wolff (Germany) 10.865 (66.268 km/h) 2 Jamie Staff (Great Britain) 1/8 Final Heat 4 1 Grzegorz Krejner (Poland) 10.891 (66.110 km/h) 2 Matthias John (Germany) 1/8 Final Heat 5 1 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 10.570 (68.117 km/h) 2 Sean Eadie (Australia) 1/8 Final Heat 6 1 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 10.786 (66.753 km/h) 2 Ahmed Lopez (Cuba) 1/8 Final Rep 1 1 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) 10.827 (66.500 km/h) 2 Ahmed Lopez (Cuba) 3 Matthias John (Germany) 1/8 Final Rep 2 1 Sean Eadie (Australia) 10.856 (66.323 km/h) 2 Jamie Staff (Great Britain) 3 Adam Ptacnik (Czech Republic) 1/8 Final 9th-12th 9 Jamie Staff (Great Britain) 10.920 (65.934 km/h) 10 Matthias John (Germany) 11 Adam Ptacnik (Czech Republic) DNS Ahmed Lopez (Cuba) Quarterfinal Heat 1 - Race #1 1 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) 10.910 (65.995 km/h) 2 Sean Eadie (Australia) Quarterfinal Heat 1 - Race #2 1 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) 10.852 (66.347 km/h) 2 Sean Eadie (Australia) Quarterfinal Heat 2 - Race #1 1 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) 11.290 (63.773 km/h) 2 Damian Zielinski (Poland) Quarterfinal Heat 2 - Race #2 1 Damian Zielinski (Poland) 11.116 (64.772 km/h) 2 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) Quarterfinal Heat 2 - Race #3 1 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) 11.027 (65.294 km/h) 2 Damian Zielinski (Poland) Quarterfinal Heat 3 - Race #1 1 René Wolff (Germany) 10.997 (65.472 km/h) 2 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) Quarterfinal Heat 3 - Race #2 1 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 10.736 (67.064 km/h) 2 René Wolff (Germany) Quarterfinal Heat 3 - Race #3 1 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 10.695 (67.321 km/h) 2 René Wolff (Germany) Quarterfinal Heat 4 - Race #1 1 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 10.931 (65.868 km/h) 2 Grzegorz Krejner (Poland) Quarterfinal Heat 4 - Race #2 1 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 11.099 (64.871 km/h) 2 Grzegorz Krejner (Poland) Quarterfinal 5-8 Ride 5 Damian Zielinski (Poland) 10.968 (65.646 km/h) 6 René Wolff (Germany) 7 Sean Eadie (Australia) 8 Grzegorz Krejner (Poland) Semifinal Heat 1 - Race #1 1 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 11.071 (65.035 km/h) 2 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) Semifinal Heat 1 - Race #2 1 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 11.145 (64.603 km/h) 2 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) Semifinal Heat 2 - Race #1 1 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) 11.061 (65.094 km/h) 2 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) Semifinal Heat 2 - Race #2 1 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) 11.678 (61.654 km/h) 2 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 3rd-4th - Race #1 1 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) 11.928 (60.362 km/h) 2 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 3rd-4th - Race #2 1 Takashi Kaneko (Japan) 11.069 (65.047 km/h) 2 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) Final - Race #1 1 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 11.001 (65.449 km/h) 2 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain) Final - Race #2 1 Craig Maclean (Great Britain) 11.112 (64.795 km/h) 2 José Antonio Villanueva Trinidad (Spain)
