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Report: BUCS Cycling Track Championships

6th – 7th November 2010 Manchester Veldrome |

Hoy's Records Tumble  -  from Hannah Marshall at bucs.org.uk

The Manchester Velodrome played host to a truly remarkable BUCS Cycling Track Championships recently. Records fell as a new generation of student athletes took to the track. Dave Readle of Staffordshire University may well be described as the star of the show with some outstanding performances. His first outing onto the track saw him smash Sir Chris Hoy’s Kilo record by over 1 and a half seconds, clocking 1.06.327 over four laps of the track, a record that has stood since 1996 when Sir Chris was a student at Heriott-Watt University.

Readle then went onto break the Men’s Sprint Record, which had also stood since 1996 by Northern Ireland’s Commonwealth Games Athlete Alwyn McMath of Salford University, posting 11.171 for the 200m event. The Championships were a huge success with competitors enjoying a truly world class venue resulting in fantastic times being posted by student athletes from across the UK in the full range of track cycling disciplines. The Championships were kindly sponsored by GEM Estate Management Ltd's Max Pendleton, a British national grass-track cycling champion.

BUCS’ Cycling Sports Manager Ed Curran said “The BUCS Track Championships returned to the BUCS Cycling calendar with a bang after a break of some 12 years.  The event showed fantastic displays of ability from competitors far and wide and culminating in the breaking of some long-standing records.  Thanks must go to Event Organiser, Paddy Hill, the National Cycling Centre, Gem Estate Management and Red Bull for helping to deliver a fantastic event for all involved. We look forward to returning next year and breaking more records.”

British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) is the national organisation for higher sport in the UK. It represents 150 universities and colleges and manages the development and competition programme for 50 sports. For more information visit www.bucs.org.uk  or join our facebook page at www.facebook.com/bucs

Success for Team GWR at British Universities & Colleges Sport Track Championships

Individual Pursuit
In the qualification heats, GWR team U23 elite rider Llewellyn Kinch qualified with the second fastest time of 4:58. The leading time set in qualification was 4:51 by Xavier Disley. In the second heat, Llewellyn qualified with the fastest time of 4:54 a couple of tenths of a second ahead of the qualification heats winner Xavier.

In the final, Llewellyn, who had already ridden qualifying and the final of the team pursuit and a team sprint before the event, managed to take the victory even though he said ‘my legs were feeling a bit sore’. During the race he was about a second up after the first kilo but then lost this advantage to go a couple of seconds down. Llewellyn managed to dig deep and bring the deficit back to draw level with the final lap to go. Llewellyn  in his words ’absolutely nailed it’ for the last lap to win by 0.7 seconds with 4:50.

Kilometre
In the kilometre, which is an individual timed sprint around the track, GWR team U23 elite riders Dave Sinclair and Llewellyn Kinch were riding. Dave took the bronze medal with a 1:10 and Llewellyn Kinch finished 4th a further second behind Dave. The winning time by  Dave Readle of 1.06.327 beat the BUSC record that Sir Chris Hoy set when he was studying.

Team Pursuit
Llewellyn Kinch was riding for the university where he studies, Cambridge, in this discipline where four riders start and the time is taken from the third rider to cross the line. Llewellyn’s team won the Gold medal for this event. His team qualified second fastest but because the squad had had limited practice, their changes were not as smooth as they needed to be. This improved dramatically for the final and Llewellyn’s team were level with the team of Birmingham at mid distance. Llewellyn put in a big effort on the front for a couple of laps to take a few seconds out of the Birmingham team and the Cambridge team then held on to this in the closing stages to secure the win.

Team Sprint
Llewellyn Kinch was again riding for the Cambridge team which achieved the silver medal in this event. His team made it through to the final with the fastest time, but due to the packed programme of events giving Llewellyn only five minutes recovery after his effort in the individual pursuit final, he was a little fatigued for the Team Sprint.

Llewellyn was the anchor man for his team which meant he had to do two laps holding the wheels before he put in his effort. Due to a slow first lap and Llewellyn’s legs feeling the effects of the days racing, his team missed the win by a second.

Points Race
In the points race, again the GWR team had both Dave Sinclair and Llewellyn Kinch riding the event. Llewellyn said ‘my legs were really pretty destroyed after four pursuits and two team sprints but I decided to do it anyway’. Dave, having fresher legs, was keen to end the championships with a gold medal and set an early lead in the competition by taking points in the early sprints.

Llewellyn sat in for the first few laps to try to ride himself into the event. At mid distance, Dave got away with Finlay Young and Llewellyn jumped the bunch to bridge to them. The three riders then settled into a good rhythm and after sharing the points on the next sprint, they managed to ride and gain a lap on the field.

This lap gain placed Dave in first position and Llewellyn in third. Llewellyn then won the next sprint with Dave second. This further increased Dave’s lead in the race and he looked to have it secured. Llewellyn had 28 points and was still one point from Finlay Young, on 29 points, who was in the silver medal position with the final 10 laps of the race to go.

Sensing the danger, Finlay Young  made it into a five rider group that managed to escape the peloton. Llewellyn was not able to close the gap to the leading five riders and thus end the race in bronze. With Dave having 43 points and an unassailable lead, he finished in the main peloton with Llewellyn and took his first gold medal of the BUSA championships.