The Manchester Velodrome is set to host a multitude of international track events this winter, starting this Friday with the first round of the 2009/10 Track World Cup. Action begins at 12:00 with women’s sprint and men’s Keirin qualifying as well as men’s individual pursuit and women’s scratch race heats. The finals of all these events will take place in the evening session along with the men’s kilometre time trial.
Saturday’s session also begins at noon and the day sees qualification and finals in the 500m time trial, team sprint, individual pursuit, and points races for women, and the Madison and sprint for men. Sunday begins at 8:30am and features the women’s Keirin and team pursuit, and the men’s scratch race, team sprint and team pursuit. In common with the past few years there will be an extra Keirin competition, not part of the World Cup, organised by the Japanese Keirin Association.
Among the stars attending the event are four-time Olympic Gold medallist Chris Hoy, Olympic and World Champion Victoria Pendleton and two-time Junior World Champion Becky James. As usual the British will be the favourites to perform on their home track, but will face stiff competition from a number of foreign teams such as Australia, boasting sprinter Shane Perkins long distance specialist Rochelle Gilmore. The Dutch will also be there in force with riders including Yvonne Hijgenaar and Teun Mulder.
Once the serious business of the World Cup is out of the way the emphasis will be on entertainment in the return of the popular Revolutions series. This year sees riders divided into a number of teams, who will compete over the full series for the newly inaugurated Revolution Championship. Team captains have been confirmed as Dean Downing, Roberto Chiappa, Chris Newton, Craig MacLean, Luke Roberts, Jamie Staff, Ed Clancy and Rob Hayles.
Other stars expecting to compete in some, or all, of the series include Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins, David Millar and Stuart O’Grady. The first event will take place on Saturday 14th November with subsequent events scheduled for 5th December, 16th January and 27th February.