Sir Chris Hoy has low expectations from European Track Championships
Sir Chris Hoy, the four times Olympic cycling Champion, has stated that he does not have great expectations from the European Track Championships scheduled to be held this weekend in Pruszkow, Poland. The Scottish cyclist who had to pull out of the British Championships in September amid raging illness, resumed his training and was quite happy to be back in the game.
The European Championship, which is the first challenge before the riders to ensure their participation in the 2012 Olympics, is rather important for 34 year old Hoy. Talking about his form with respect to the upcoming event, Hoy was of the view that his current form was encouraging though not exactly his best.
Hoy would be participating in the sprint and team sprint at the three day event starting from this Friday. Hoy emphasized that in the three-man and three-lap disciplines France and Germany would provide stiff competition.
In order to concentrate on winning the Olympics qualifications in Poland, Hoy had to miss the Delhi Commonwealth Games. Now he has a long season before him which entails performing in Melbourne, Manchester, Colombia, and the World Championship that is going to be held in March at Apeldoorn, Netherlands.
In order to remain ahead in the game and reduce the work load near the end, Hoy is concentrating upon bagging as many points during the season as possible.
For fans of cycling, rather discouraging news was aired when it was disclosed that Victoria Pendleton would not be able to compete in the individual sprint competitions, in which she had made it to the gold medal in the 2008 Beijing games and dominated in five of the past six world championships. The qualifications for the individual, team and keirin sprinting events for the 2012 London Olympics would be decided upon the basis of results in team competitions during the next eighteen months.
For Pendleton, changes to the track program for London have given her a chance to hone her skills in keirin in the European Championships. Keirin is a discipline in which she is relatively novice, although she would also get a chance to compete in the team sprints.
The new rules imposed by the World Cycling Body are very disturbing for British cyclists who had swept the medal table at the Beijing Olympics, but the rules have some brighter aspects as well. For instance, by merging some of the competitions the spectators would get the chance to observe the best of the best cyclists battling for the titles while allowing riders from comparatively less developed or developing countries to take part into the sport too.
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