Simply the Best

From the 29th of March to the 1st of April 2007 the Track Cycling world witnessed an amazing event

The Great British cycling team won an unbelieveable seven gold medals at the World Track Cycling Championships in Palma, Mallorca.

Yes its been done before in 1999 when the French team that consisted of the likes of Florien Rousseau, Laurent Gane, Arnaud Tournant and Marion Clignet won seven golds and ten medals in total, but never before have a national walked away from a World Championships with seven gold medals and eleven medals overall

Such domination does not come without hard work and determination. Due to a fantastic support network of coaches the British Cycling federation were able to use the funding that they receive, from the Government via the National Lottery, to great effect

Performance Director Dave Brailsford is regularly quoted as saying that by the 2012 London Olympics the British Cycling team should win 16 medals of out a possible 18

Obviously such a high target can be laughed at and criticised as 'setting the standard too high' and building up unrealisitc expectations of the riders. However during the 2007 World Championships the British team proved that this target is realistic

Stars of the show had to be Victoria Pendleton who with three World Titles brings home the greatest ever British medalhaul from a single worlds. In winning the inaugural Women's Team Sprint title, Victoria helped Worlds debutant Shanaze Reade win her first world title, after only transferring to the track from BMX during the Manchester World Cup in February this year

The Sprint is Vicki's showcase event and she didn't disappoint as she absolutely hammered the opposition and easily took the title from Shuang Guo in the final. It's the third year in a row that Pendleton has made the final of the Sprint, in 2005 she claimed her first World Title, last year she was beaten by Natallia Tsylinskaya of Belarus and had to settle for silver. However this year she dominated proceedings and got revenge over the Belarussian along the way to the title

The final jewel in Queen Victoria's crown was the Keirin in which she was heavily marked by the other riders, who were now all to aware of what the Brit was capable of. This didn't matter to much to Vicki as despite two restarts in the final when Christin Muche was dq'ed for dangerous riding and the derny malfunctioned in the second start she did not lose focus and produced a fantastic ride to win her third world title

This meant that Victoria Pendleton had achieved the unthinkable and become World Champion in all her events, Thursday Team Sprint, Saturday Sprint and Sunday Keirin

An emotional Pendleton then broke down in tears as she took her laps of honour and saluted the crowd and the BC backroom staff, simply amazing

"I can't believe it," said Pendleton. "Let's face it, in this team a world medal is average, but three golds is a little bit special."

The Velodrome will feature an exclusive interview with Pendleton later this month

It wasn't just Victoria that couldn't stop winning, as Chris Hoy cemented his name in history as one of the greatest Kilo rider to grace the sport. Unless the event returns to the Olympic level, Hoy will never compete in the Kilo again and so stands alongside France's Arnaud Tournant and Lothar Thoms of Germany as four times World Kilo Champion

Hoy easily beat Francois Pervis of France when he recorded a time of 1m 00.999s to Pervis' Silver medal winning time of 1m 01.838s

Chris' time was not far off his Gold medal winning performance in the 2004 Athens Olympics, when he recorded 1m 00.711s, only 0.3seconds faster than today

An Interview with the now seven times World Champion can be found here: www.velodrome.org.uk/chrishoyinterview.html

Thoms dominated the Kilo throughout the late 70s winning his four titles back to back from 1977 to 1981. He also won the 1980 Olympic title in Moscow, beating Aleksandr Panfilov and David Weller

However although Tournant added his 13th World Title to his Palmeres when he won the Team Sprint in Mallorca with Gregory Bauge and Mickael Bourgain, he has never won the Kilo at the Olympic level

So if Hoy breaks Tournant's World Record for the Kilometre on May the 12th he truly will be the greatest Kilo TT rider in the history of the sport

Since the Kilo was removed from Olympic competition Hoy has been forced to re-adapt his skills to a different event, and if results from the International Keirin at the Manchester World Cup and World Champs are anything to go by Chris is starting to record the same emphatic victories in the Keirin that we are used to seeing in the Kilo

Working with Ross Edgar in the finals of both events (Keirin) Chris dominated the opposition and Edgar collected the Bronze

"I'm totally shocked and delighted," said Hoy. "It was way beyond my expectations because I'm a novice to this event and I used my strength to go hard at the finish."

Britain's Jamie Staff who is not usually a Kilo rider clocked a fantastic time of 1m 02.074s to take the Bronze medal

Staff showed just why he should not be written off for the Olympics next year when he recorded the fastest opening 250m in a time of 18.115s and is determined to be one of the three riders selected for the Team Sprint

After the event Chris commented that "It's a dream way to sign off from the Kilo in competition with my 4th Kilo Title, and it shows I'm on target for the World Record attempt in May"

"I'm delighted. I didn't know what sort of performance I would put in, but this is way better than I expected.

"These have been the best worlds I've ever had.

"If I had gone three thousandths of a second quicker in the team sprint it would have been the world championships of my dreams, but apart from that it has been perfect."

If two multiple World Champions weren't enough Bradley Wiggins made his return to the track in emphatic style at the recent Manchester World Cup, winning both the Individual and Team Pursuit in his usual style, and in Mallorca he did just the same

Wiggins had already qualified five seconds quicker than Bartko in the Morning and again showed why he is hot favourite to retain his Olympic Title next year in Beijing

He then went on to catch the German inside 3km during the final to claim the World Title

Teaming up with Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas and Paul Manning in the Team Pursuit the quartet recorded the second fastest ever time for the 4km discipline and easily claimed back the title they won in 2005

"That's probably one of the most pleasing world championships I've ever won," Wiggins said afterwards.

"The individual is one thing but I can't express how much of a team we've been over the last few months.

"It has been a fantastic team effort right across the board. The big thing for me was the mental side of it coming back after the individual win because it takes so much out of you mentally."

Meanwhile in the Men's Team Sprint, Britain's Craig Maclean, Ross Edgar and Chris Hoy set a new world record of 43.917s to qualify quickest and ride off against the reigning World Champions France in the final

In a spectacular ride off for Gold, Gregory Bauge set an amazing opening lap time of 17.304s to set France on their way to their eighth Team Sprint World Championship title, narrowly beating the British trio by 0.002s

"We've got mixed emotions," said MacLean. "To go that fast and lose the gold by just two thousandths of a second, it's gutting."

Maclean also finished fourth in the Individual Sprint and was unlucky not to medal after dominating the rounds

There was a suprise in the Women's Individual Pursuit when Britain's Bex Romero qualified ahead of her teammate Wendy Houvenaghel in a time of 3m 31.894s to make the final along with defending World Champion, Sarah Hammer of the USA

Hammer was only slightly quicker than Romero as she recorded a time of 3m 31.359s, however Rebecca's time smashed the national record set by Wendy Houvenaghel at the Manchester World Cup by a massive four seconds, the previous mark standing at 3m 35.294s

Meanwhile Britain's Houvenaghel was only able to qualify fourth fastest in a time of 3m 35.289s and therefore faces Katie Mactier in the Bronze medal ride off tonight

In the Medal ride offs Romero couldn't quite manage to overhaul Hammer and had to settle for the Silver medal, but still recorded a fantastic time of 3m 33.409s to Hammer's 3m 30.213s

In the Bronze Medal Ride off Wendy Houvenaghel was beaten by Katie Mactier of Australia, however she only just missed out as Mactier recorded 3m 36.306s, whereas as Wendy finished in 3m 37.406s

Eleven medals is only half of the story, 17 British riders travelled to Mallorca to take on the World and only five will return home without a medal

These five include Anna Blyth, the Junior Keirin World Champion who rode fantastic in the Keirin and only lost the Bronze on the line to the vastly experienced and World, Olympic and Commonwealth Champion Anna Meares of Australia. When you add in the fact that Blyth is still only 18 and she was riding her first senior World Championships, this achievement is even more remarkable

So things are looking good for the future of Track Cycling in Great Britain, bring on the 2008 season because not only do we have the Olympics in Beijing to look forward to, we also have the small matter of the Worlds coming home to British Cycling's very own Manchester Velodrome, when maybe we can round of the World Champion total to a perfect ten?