The Great Britain cycling team has had its moments on the velodrome in the Dutch town of Apeldoorn, which is where Laura Kenny, née Trott, made her international breakthrough in 2010 and where a year later the team began its final march on London 2012 with some hard talking from the coaches. Midway to Tokyo, a haul of five medals in Olympic events on the Dutch track and third in the medal table with six medals overall was a distinct improvement on last year’s performance in Hong Kong.
On Sunday afternoon the world track championships closed with a stirring ride in the Madison for Mark Stewart and Ollie Wood, who ended up only a few metres short of a medal. Agonisingly, had the pair finished second rather than third in the final sprint of a dramatically fast 50 kilometres, that would have enabled them to snaffle the bronze medal from a strong Australian team of Cameron Mayer and Callum Scotson.
The team’s week was headlined by gold medals in the men’s team pursuit, traditionally a strength, and for Emily Nelson and Katie Archibald in the women’s Madison – in only its second ever running. But there were three silver medals which held some significance in the context of the Olympic cycle. The women’s team pursuit is another British medal banker and the quartet’s silver here on Thursday marked Kenny’s return to international competition after the birth of her son, Albert.
The other third of Team Kenny, Laura’s husband Jason, was also making his comeback after the best part of two years away since Rio – and he did so with silver for the men’s team along with Jack Carlin and Ryan Owens. For a man who is rarely at his best mid-cycle, and who had actually gone into retirement for more than a year, coming back to anchor the team in the Man Three position was not to be underestimated. Similarly Carlin’s silver medal in the solo match sprint holds huge promise for a 20-year-old, as does his fifth place in the keirin. Even when Sir Chris Hoy was in his pomp, the men’s sprint squad never enjoyed such strength in depth.
In men’s and women’s endurance, and men’s sprint, there is strength in depth two years from Tokyo. Along with Carlin, Owens and Kenny, Philip Hindes, Joe Truman and Callum Skinner remain in the mix in men’s sprint. After Elinor Barker’s omnium crash – which possibly cost her a medal – Nelson stepped up in the Madison, without looking out of place alongside Archibald; the team pursuit called on a fifth rider in Ellie Dickinson, while the “fifth” rider from Rio, Ciara Horne, remains on the comeback trail.
The men’s endurance will gain in numbers as road specialists such as Mark Cavendish put their hats in the ring as Tokyo beckons, although the final selection of five could be a conundrum, including, as it must, a strong Madison pairing. For the moment, however, the team pursuit squad still has a distinctly experimental look about it, with relative newcomers such as the former sprinter Kian Emadi, the academy rider Ethan Hayter and Team KGF’s Charlie Tanfield.
Great Britain’s perennial rivals Australia were absent from Apeldoorn but even so, for the Britons a time of 3min 53sec for the gold medal looks fast at this point in the Olympic cycle.
The big gap is in women’s sprint, where there were no medals in Holland. Katy Marchant, a bronze medallist in Rio, has yet to repeat that form, and Victoria Barnes (nee Williamson) is still recovering from a serious crash she had in January 2016. The academy rider Lauren Bate competed in Holland alongside Marchant but Becky James’s retirement while still in her prime has clearly left a gap which the team may struggle to fill in the next two years.
