Youths follow in tracks of heroes
Top talents pedal into Paisley in pursuit of route taken by previous champions
IF YOU want to see the next Mark Cavendish or Laura Trott in action, then Paisley is the place to be.
The future stars of cycling will converge on the Renfrewshire town for the 2015 British National Youth Circuit Race Championships tomorrow, marking the first time Scotland has hosted the event. Cavendish and Trott, along with Geraint Thomas, are past British circuit race youth champions who have starred on a world stage.
Among the ones to watch in this year’s race is Rhona Callander, the reigning Under-16 girls Scottish national circuit race champion, who defended that title on home turf in Stirling last month.
The 16-year-old was overall winner of the 2015 ScottishPower Youth Tour of Scotland in April and also took victory in the Under-16 girls race at Crit on the Campus earlier this year. She admits she would love to add the British title to her growing palmares.
Callander began racing aged nine for the Wallace Warriors, the junior section of Stirling Bike Club. She is a previous runner-up at Under-14 level in the 2013 British National Youth Circuit Race Championships.
“The faster the race, the better,” she says. “I like races when it is windy, basically any adverse conditions.
“I quite like the idea of the Classics and that style of racing. The harder a race is, the better I tend to do. I thrive in tough situations.”
Callander lists her aspirations as to compete at the Olympics and world championships — “all the usual big dreams” — and is keen to emulate the international success of Scottish rider Katie Archibald, the reigning double European track champion. “Seeing Katie doing so well does bring it closer to home,” she says. “She is someone I look up to. I love how she came onto the scene virtually from nowhere and is an absolute beast when she races.”
Another gunning for victory in Paisley will be her Stirling Bike Club teammate Jenny Holl. The 15-year-old from Blair Drummond is a formidable competitor. Holl showed her mettle to take the junior women’s scratch and points race titles, despite still being classed as a youth rider, at the 2015 Scottish National Youth and Junior Track Championships last month.
She also claimed a clutch of podiums this year, including winning the Under16 girls race at the Balgay Park Criterium in Dundee and taking stage three of the ScottishPower Youth Tour of Scotland.
Holl started racing aged nine. Her father Nigel, the chief executive of Scottish Athletics, had switched to cycling from running and getting out on their bikes became a shared passion.
There is no doubting her ambition. With recent days spent on a family sailing holiday around the west coast of Scotland, Holl has had her bike on rollers to train at every opportunity. “Ideally I would like to win this weekend, but if I can get a top three or top five that would be good,” she says.
Holl placed 28th out of 54 finishers in the second round of the Matrix Fitness Grand Prix Series in Motherwell in May, undaunted by rubbing shoulders with an elite field that included Archibald and reigning British national circuit race champion Eileen Roe. “I just got stuck in,” she says. “It wasn’t that different from a lot of my races because in Scotland we race with the boys quite a lot. That is fast racing, so the Matrix Fitness Grand Prix Series didn’t feel too much faster than our races usually are.”
Can she beat the boys? “At the Balgay Park Criterium I managed to stay with the boys for the whole race. I was sixth overall, so there were boys who finished behind me.”
Also competing will be double Scottish youth track champion Amber King (Stirling Bike Club), alongside Ellie Park (Billy Bilsland Cycles), Gemma Penman (Johnstone Wheelers CC) and Lusia Steele (Johnstone Wheelers CC).
In the boys’ event, Joe Nally (Hardie Bikes) is among the Scots to watch. The Dunfermline rider retained his Under-16 boys Scottish national circuit race title last month followed by a golden double on the track at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome a fortnight later.
Nally is widely tipped among the cycling community for big things in the not too distant future.