Women In Hot Pursuit Of Gold
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 26, 1997
The best are in Perth for the world track cycling championships, and JACQUELIN MAGNAY looks at the key events and their leading lights.
Even without Barcelona Olympic silver medallist Kathy Watt, the women's 3,000m pursuit remains one of the hottest events on the world titles program.
The controversial Watt is now concentrating on the road and finished 19th in the gruelling women's Tour de France this week.
However, her verbal sparring partner, Lucy Tyler-Sharman, is competing - and on her home track, the Midvale Velodrome. Tyler-Sharman won the silver medal at the worlds last year, finishing behind current world record holder Marion Clignet, of France. Then there is Olympic champion Antonella Bellutti, of Italy, who scorched around the velodrome in Adelaide at a recent World Cup event, smashing Tyler-Sharman's track record.
And creating a bookies' nightmare, Yvonne McGregor, the 36-year-old former one-hour world record holder from Britain, beat Bellutti at the World Cup in Athens last month.
McGregor wants to finally prove herself in a year when she is injury-free; Bellutti wants a world title to go with her Olympic one; while Tyler-Sharman wants to thumb her nose - ever so politely, of course - at Watt. And hovering on the sidelines is Clignet, yet to confirm she will defend her title.
So, it shapes as tense event. The finals are on Sunday.
Men's teams pursuit, finals Saturday: Germany and Australia used to be the teams to beat, but Australia are re-building for the 2000 Olympics.
Australian track coach Charlie Walsh has an enthusiastic but raw crop of junior world champions in Nigel Grigg, Luke Roberts, Tim Lyons and Baden Cooke. The experience of Stuart O'Grady, a member of the 1993 Australian pursuit team that won the world championship, will be essential for an Australian medal.
New Zealand showed their ever-improving form with a win at the World Cup in Adelaide, while Ukraine and Russia have each won in World Cups this year. Olympic champions Italy, may be hit by the loss of their personnel to the road.
Of particular interest will be the line-up of the British team, which has the "renegade" Graeme Obree listed among its members. Obree retired from the sport two months ago but has come back to provide back-up for the teams pursuit.
Obree revolutionised track cycling, turning up at the 1993 worlds on a handmade bike featuring washing machine bearings and tiny handlebars. He broke the world record, but the riding position he used - crouched over the handlebars and front wheel - was subsequently banned mid-competition at the 1994 worlds.
Obree then developed the "superman" position, riding with his arms stretched out. But that position, copied worldwide and used by the Olympic champions Bellutti and Andrea Collinelli, is now banned.
Madison, Wednesday night: Since being introduced into the Sydney Olympic program, this helter-skelter, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, tag-team style of racing, has attracted the highest calibre of points riders and six-day specialists.
Australia's pairing of Stephen Pate and Brett Aitken is well versed in the strategies of madison racing, which involves teams of two hand-slinging each other relay-style around the track for 40km, with regular sprint points awarded along the way.
But the Australians' weakness is their slinging technique - used when one rider sends his partner into the fray while the other takes a break from the action - which the more experienced Europeans, such as Swiss champions Bruno Risi and Kurt Beschart and world champions Marco Villa and Silvio Martinello, have off pat.
Aitken said yesterday that he was heartened by his performance at the recent Adelaide World Cup, where he and Pate finished second to Risi and Beschart by only five sprint points. "We were only 70 per cent there, so there is room for improvement," he said.
Men's sprint, finals Sunday night: American Olympic sprint silver medallist Marty Nothstein likens this event to bulls fighting for superiority in a paddock of cows. The horns, of course, are the bike's handlebars - which are often flicked in the heat of battle to prove just who is the fastest man on wheels.
Nothstein has the form this year, but Australian Darryn Hill, who considers his fifth place at the Atlanta Olympics an aberration, and his big-hearted compatriot Gary Neiwand, who hopes his courage will overcome a twisted ankle, are also in contention.
Then there is Florian Rousseau, the French Adonis of the bike track, who won the world title last year. Rousseau had earlier won the 1,000m time trial in Atlanta in the aftermath of Australian Shane Kelly's foot slipping from the pedal. Rousseau said yesterday that he would concentrate on the sprint this year.
German Jens Fiedler, a big-time competitor who won the sprints at the Atlanta and Barcelona Olympics, is another favourite in a field that noted British cycling commentator Phil Liggett reckons the most open ever.
The tight bends and long straights of the Midvale Velodrome should suit whoever leads out the sprint. Hill, who is riding in front of his home crowd and who beat Nothstein earlier this year, is pumped for a big race, according to coach Walsh.
Women's 500m time trial, Saturday night: Australian Michelle Ferris was third at last year's world championships but thinks her prospects this time are enhanced by riding a new monocoque frame, rather than the standard sprint bike, which she has been trying for the past fortnight.
But the world and Olympic sprint champion and time trial champion, Felicia Ballanger, of France, is hot favourite, while an unknown quantity is the Chinese "mystery cyclist", Cuihua Jiang.
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald