World debut for Britain
A team of British cycleball players, including Bath’s Dylan Cherruault, made their country’s first appearance at the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships at the weekend.
Britain has never competed in cycleball at the World Championships but did so for the first time against 11 other nations in Ghent, Belgium.
Cycleball, which is similar to playing football on bikes, has a long history of competition across central Europe but is not a discipline that has been present in the UK until now. Players from the Bath and Somerset area have been training since 2018, with coaching and equipment support from Avid Sport and Indoor Cycling World Wide, to arrive at the point where they can represent their nation at a Championship event.
As cycleball requires a high level of technical skill, players control the ball with the wheels of the bicycle, it can be difficult for new nations to break into the sport. While clubs in Germany have existed for nearly 100 years, it is only since 2018 that there has been any coaching in Britain.
The players from the Great Britain team have travelled to train with players from Germany on two occasions this year to help provide competition, and prepared them for the World Championships.
Cycleball is played by teams of two players on an indoor court and team captain Mark Percival, 30, was joined in the squad for the tournament by three young players (Jenson Harris – 18, Nico Galbreath – 16 and Dylan Cherruault – 16) as they looked to continue to build their skills towards the 2023 World Championships that will take place on home soil in Glasgow next August.
The Great Britain team will be competing in Group B with matches on the first two days of the competition. The current defending champions are Germany, who beat Switzerland in the final at last year’s tournament in Stuttgart.
Britain suffered an 8-0 defeat against Armenia, having thrashed Japan 15-0. That was followed by a tough second day as Britain lost 10-1 against Hong Kong and 5-2 against Malaysia.