Track World Championships in Poland

At the turn of February and March, the Track Cycling World Championships were held in Pruszków, Poland.

 

 

The first amateur championship was held in Chicago in 1893, organized by the International Cycling Association. From 1895, separate competitions were held for professionals. Since 1900, world cycling has been headed by the Union Cycliste Internationale (Fr. Union Cycliste Internationale – UCI). For a time, amateur and professional cycling were governed by separate organizations created and coordinated by the UCI — respectively, the international federations of amateur (Fédération Internationale Amateur de Cyclisme – FIAC) and professional (Fédération Internationale de Cyclisme Professionnel or FICP) cycling. In 1992, the UCI reunited the divided cycling family under its own roof, and since 1993 a single championship has been held.

 

When writing about track battles, I will often recall that back in 1965, in San Sebastián, Spain, the legendary Georgian Omar Pkhakadze won what is, so far, the only Georgian rainbow jersey in history.

 

 

That year the late Omar won the amateur world title in the individual sprint, while among the professionals the Italian Giuseppe Beghetto took the victory.

 

In the hope that someday I will also get to write about present-day successes, let me return to the recent events in Poland. It is no secret that track cycling is oriented around the Olympic cycle; that cycle has already passed its halfway point, and the leading Olympic contenders are in the final stage of their preparation. A world title is highly valued in the cycling world, but it is held every year, so it is hardly surprising that everyone tries to arrive at the Olympics, held every four years, in the best possible condition. By now, those who needed a rest have rested, the injured have recovered, those who were to marry have married, and all efforts are now directed toward Tokyo 2020. The main outlines of the Olympic squads have already been drawn, benchmark times have been set at training camps — and what better stage to show what has been achieved than the World Championships? Especially a championship where you have the chance to pull on the coveted rainbow jersey in a no-holds-barred battle with your direct rivals!

The championships are held in ten events for both women and men. I won’t go into statistics here; instead, I’ll focus on the Olympic events and the main trends within them. As you know, there are five events on the Olympic program, and the most important of them are the sprint events: the individual sprint, the team sprint and the keirin.

 

 

In the women’s sprint events, the experienced Lee Wai Sze of Hong Kong dominated: she yielded to no one in either the individual sprint or the keirin and left Poland with two gold medals. The team sprint went to the Australians, and in the near future it may well be they who challenge Lee Wai Sze in the individual events, too.

In the omnium, the great Dutch rider Kirsten Wild celebrated yet another victory — her sixth world title and her second in a row in the omnium.

 

 

However, if we keep an eye on Italy’s Letizia Paternoster, who has just moved up from the juniors to the elite ranks, Kirsten certainly won’t have an easy time at the Olympics.

 

 

In Poland, Letizia settled for silver in the omnium, and it seems she has no intention of stopping there!

The team pursuit was won by the Australians. However, in the silver-medal British quartet we once again saw Olympic champions Laura Kenny, Katie Archibald and Elinor Barker together, which will make the Olympic competition extremely fierce. All the more so as Elinor, buoyed by the rainbow jersey she won in the scratch race, will keep training for future victories.

In the men’s sprint events in Pruszków, the Dutch were completely dominant, with gold medals in all three events. What’s more, they turned the most prestigious of them, the individual sprint, into a Dutch open championship, contesting the final among themselves.

 

 

In the men’s team pursuit, too, we saw an Australia–Britain final with the same result.

In the omnium, young New Zealander Campbell Stewart yielded first place to no one. It is his first major success since moving up to the elite ranks — his first big rainbow jersey. Considering that Campbell twice (2015, 2016) won world gold in this event as a junior, no one will be surprised if I name him the main favorite for the Olympics.

 

[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIXJP9OFY0o[/youtube]

 

I would also single out the gold won by Italy’s Filippo Ganna in the individual pursuit.

 

 

I cannot help but join the whole cycling world: I send special greetings and express my deepest respect to the legendary German Kristina Vogel — welcome back!

 

 

 

 

 

Translated from Georgian with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic), reviewed by the Velorbola editors.

Featured image: ROBERTO and LUCA BETTINI/www.bettiniphoto.net

Inside post thumbnail image: ROBERTO and LUCA BETTINI/www.bettiniphoto.net

 

Special thanks to the Italian photographers ROBERTO and LUCA BETTINI for permission to use their watermarked works in our publications.