A Jolly Good Velodrome

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Saturday 15 December 2018 at the Lee Valley Velopark
Result	Women’s Sprint: Stephanie Morton (AUS) Men’s Keirin: Matthijs Buchli (NED) Men’s Madison: Denmark Women’s Omnium: Kirsten Wild (NED)
Competition	UCI Track World Cup (Event 4 of 6) Day 2 evening session.
Hopstats	My first time at a live track cycling event.
Context
This event is part of a sequence which allows ranking points to be scored towards the next Olympic Games.  Spread over three days, tickets are available separately for each session.
In one sentence
A varied full-house evening of sporting excellence in a superb venue.
So what?
It would be too expensive to attend all sessions of one of these events, but I would go again.  It made a nice change from freezing on a touchline.
Event Report and Pix
It’s still mildly surprising that the 2012 London Olympic venues have been left so far from a public transport stop.  The Velopark, like the Copper Box, is a 20-minute brisk walk from the stations at Stratford.  The pre-event mailing had warned us that the track is kept very warm inside (high 20s Celsius) and to dress in layers.  Sound advice – I was dripping from a downpour on arrival but ended up in T-shirt by the final event.  Fortunately I had taken a waterproof bag within a small rucksack so no damage done and the programme stayed dry!  You enter the velodrome by an “airlock” style entrance so that the temperature is maintained. The ticket price (around £50) means that I must compare this event with top-level football.  I’d say this was better value, with almost three hours of sporting action.  There was a range of food and drink outlets – not cheap but very varied, and expensive rather than Wembley-outrage expensive.  The only annoyance was the constant trickle of spectators going backwards and forwards to the caterers.  I just don’t get this – you’ve just spent a lot of money to watch a live sporting contest, sit down and watch it.  There was a mildly amusing feature of the pre-event entertainment – Oblivious Cam.  Some unsuspecting member of the crowd appears on the big screen, and remains oblivious to this.  Oh how we laughed. Anyway, here’s the sporting report.  A lot of physics involved in this sport, by the way, and nothing wrong with that. The Women’s Sprint semi-finals are one-on-one confrontations with a tactical element.  The event lasts 3x250m laps.  The first is usually slow and cagey, with the person in front looking backwards and the person behind trying to use the slope of the track to gain an advantage in a sudden burst of acceleration.  At some point during the second lap or even later, one or other of the riders will make their move.  It can be an advantage to be in second position at this point, using the slipstream to conserve energy, but you need to be close to get the advantage.  The semi-finals are also best-of-three but neither Stephanie Morton (Aus) nor Emma Hinze (Ger) needed a decider as they saw off Olena Straikova (Ukr) and Laurine van Reissen (Ned). Meanwhile, in between those two sprint runs, we had watched the Elimination race, one of the four components of the Women’s Omnium.  Two events had taken place earlier in the day.  Essentially, the rider in last position every other lap is eliminated, and they are informed of this by flashing LEDs on their handlebars.  It is fair to say that sometimes they appear to be indignantly surprised by this.   It is an impressive sight, and even more impressive that they don’t end up in a giant heap of twisted metal.  Gradually the field is whittled down and there is a showdown between the last two.  Kirsten Wild (Ned) held off Amy Cure (Aus).  British competitor Elinor Barker had been eliminated around half-way, leaving her 6th overall at that point. The second round of the Men’s Keirin followed.  Six riders on track, three laps following strictly behind a slightly comical motorised cycle known as the durney, gradually speeding up, before the durney pulls over and there is a three-lap race.  Once again, track positioning and slipstreaming are vital elements of the tactics.  There were two second round races, each supplying three riders for the final.  GB’s Joseph Truman was eliminated in 4th, but Jack Carlin, riding for a scratch team, made it through. The action continued with the Men’s Madison.  This moderately incomprehensible event is for pairs of riders.  At any given moment, one of the pair is active.  He hands over to his partner by catching them up where he was dawdling on the higher levels, and then with a joining of hands and a “slingshot” action propelling them ahead.  It’s astonishing how it is achieved, safely, over and over again with another twenty or so pairs trying to do the same thing.  Every ten laps there is a sprint to the line that scores points for the first four active riders, with the last one worth double.  It is also possible to score 20 points by lapping the field.  In the end, the young GBR pair of Fred Wright and Matt Walls had to be content with the silver medal despite winning the final sprint.  Even though they had picked up points regularly in the sprints, Denmark’s Julius Johansen and Casper von Folsach had taken a lap out of the field earlier on and they managed to hold on to that advantage. In the Men’s Keirin final, Matthijs Buchli (Ned) took the win, with Jack Carlin pipped for a medal in fourth place. The Women’s Sprint title went to Stephanie Morton (Aus) who saw off Emma Hinze of Germany.  Laurine van Reissen (Ned) took the bronze. This left us with the Points Race, the last event of the Women’s Omnium.  Points are scored for lapping the field or for the sprints that take place every ten laps.  When all was added up, Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands took gold from Jennifer Valente (USA) and Alison Beveridge (Can) with GB’s Elinor Barker in 5th after a decent showing in the final event. All great fun.  At least it had stopped raining for the walk back to the station.  Cycling has developed a good spectator product with some interesting ways of competing for going round a track.  They vary from the intense one-on-one to the co-operative carnage.  It is athletically and technologically very impressive.
What Next?
All being well and weather permitting, back on the Step 4 football trails next week.  Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter!