Champions League to move cycling up a gear
On Wednesday evening, in a velodrome in Aguascalientes, a small town in central Mexico which sits at an altitude of 6,200ft, British rider Alex Dowsett narrowly failed to break cycling’s hour record for a second time. By the end of 60 gruelling minutes spent lapping the 250-metre track, the Essex-born cyclist had racked up a frankly ludicrous 54.555km (nearly 34 miles).
It was a gutsy effort from a rider who was born with severe haemophilia A – Dowsett is the only known elite sportsperson with the condition to compete in an able-bodied field – and who was using the challenge to raise money for, and awareness of, the disease. But not quite enough to beat Belgian Victor Campenaerts’s record of 55.089km set in 2019.
And while it won Dowsett plenty of cycling kudos, it did not make much of a splash beyond the sport. The hour record, by its very nature, is one for the purists; solitary, unspectacular, a unique form of mental and physical torture.
Tomorrow evening, at the Velodrom Illes Balears in Majorca, track cycling’s latest attempt to break into the mainstream goes live. The UCI Track Champions League is at the other end of the spectrum from the hour record.
Pitting the 18 best male and female sprint and endurance riders in the world against each other across six consecutive weekends each autumn, live on television, to determine the “champion of champions” in four different disciplines, the hope is it will revolutionise a sport which, in this country at least, gets a huge amount of public money, and has its moment in the sun once every four years, but is generally still seen as a bit alternative. The concept has some high-profile supporters. Sir Chris Hoy, six-time Olympic champion, is an official ambassador for the series.
“Track cycling is a sport of untapped potential,” Hoy insists. “This is a first step. But the Champions League will evolve, and become better and better. As a starting point, it’s really exciting. I only wish I was still racing.”
Hoy says the lack of regular
contact between the world’s best track riders is one reason this new series should work. “From the riders’ perspective, you get that consistent competition,” he explains. “And from a fan’s perspective, you get to know the athletes, not just once every four years. It’s a chance to really build a fan base.”
There have been attempts in the past to take track mainstream, with limited success. Organisers of the Champions League have clearly decided to simplify things. There will be only 72 riders in total – equal numbers male and female – and only four disciplines, the individual sprint and keirin for the sprinters, and the scratch and elimination races for the endurance riders.
Hoy believes this is sensible, rejecting suggestions it is in any way “dumbed down” and adding that the prize money (the overall winner of each category will take home €25,000 (£21,400), while race winners will pocket €1,000 each) should help attract star names. “Track cycling has always been the poor relation,” Hoy notes. “Not so much sprint, because track is the pinnacle for sprint riders, but for endurance riders; they get lured off to the road because they can make a living from it.”
Laura and Jason Kenny, who do not necessarily need €25,000 but who do need a rest, have chosen to give this inaugural series a swerve.
But Britain – which hosts two rounds, in London, on Dec 3 and 4, before the finale in Tel Aviv – will be well represented by Olympic greats Katie Archibald and Ed Clancy, and by youngsters Sophie Capewell and Rhys Britton.
Can it take track mainstream? Clancy is adamant it has legs. “This is the best attempt I’ve ever seen to try to bring it to the fans.”