Sunday, April 28, 2024

Tag: Team Pursuit

Willi Moore – “Winning Olympic bronze was the best day of my cycling career”

The legendary GB Team Pursuit quartet which won bronze in the 1972 Munich Olympics – Ron Keeble, Mick Bennett and Ian Hallam have all appeared on our pages but the missing piece was Willi Moore. However, thanks to the good offices of the aforementioned Mr. Keeble we caught up with the man who could do it all – time trials, road and, of course, the track – British, Commonwealth, World and Olympic medallist, Mr. W. Moore.

“A Boy From the Elephant” by Ron Keeble

Ron Keeble's childhood stories would make a good movie – it would need to be in black and white though, to get the mood right, and perhaps a French director? Full of mischief and close shaves with authority, two things that would follow him throughout his life. It’s safe to say that this is not your average cycling book.

Dean Woods

We were sad to hear the news of the passing of one of Australia’s top track and road men, Dean Woods, on March the 3rd at the age of 55. He’ll be missed by everybody whose lives he touched. Admired, loved and respected by all. A truly iconic legend.

Jens Lehmann – One of the World’s Best Ever Pursuit Riders

Germany’s Jens Lehmann’s first international success came with the silver medal in the Worlds Individual Pursuit in 1989 behind the legendary Viatcheslav Ekimov; but he was still winning Worlds medals in 2002 - Individual Pursuit bronze and Team Pursuit silver.

Ian Hallam – Team and Individual Pursuit Champion of the ’70s and ’80s

It’s our privilege to have interviewed Mr. Ian Hallam; two Olympic Team Pursuit bronze medals, a Worlds Individual Pursuit silver, a Worlds Team Pursuit silver, two Commonwealth Individual Pursuit golds, a Commonwealth Games Team Pursuit gold, Commonwealth bronze in the Kilometre and 20 Kilometre, and 25 British track titles.

Matti Dobbins – Young Scot is trialling with Team GB

The good news is that Scotland is eligible to field a team in the UCI Track Nations Cup events and encouragingly, we have around a dozen riders vying for a ride. One of those on the squad is 19 year-old Matti Dobbins from Bridge of Weir, who as a junior was a Scottish track champion across multi-disciplines and has been trialling with the GB squad at Manchester, focusing on making the GB and Scottish Team Pursuit squads.

Ron Keeble – “No way I’d have let the Rainbow Jerseys go!”

Great Britain took Olympic Team Pursuit bronze in ’72; Worlds silver in ’73; tasted bitter disappointment in ’74 when on a world record ride and again took Olympic bronze in ’76. Recently we’ve interviewed three of the gentlemen who were in those teams: Ian Banbury, Rik Evans and Mick Bennett. We’ve caught up with another of the group, Mr. Ron Keeble who was in the Munich team which took Olympic bronze in 1972.

Rolf Gölz – A Chat with ‘Turbo’ about his Career

Rolf Gölz might not be a name that readily comes to mind, but from 1983 to 1993 the man from West Germany filled his palmarès with Olympic and World medals, National championships, Tour stage wins, Classics and a list of other race wins. Ed Hood caught up with Rolf for a chat over old times.

Mick Bennett – “I’d take that rainbow jersey in a heartbeat!”

Mick Bennett is well known these days as head of Sweetspot Management and Race Director of the Tour of Britain, but as an athlete in the '60s, '70s and '80s was a formidable track and road rider and was part of the Team Pursuit quartet which refused to take their rightful World Championship title. Here's his story.

Rik Evans – Part Two; “It was a win that lost me my job”

Rik Evans continues telling his story, from giving away a Worlds title to Commonwealth Gold medal, top club 34 Nomads and his slide out of cycling but into depression. Evans has now settled in Australia and cycling has come back into his life.

Rik Evans – Part One; Declining the Rainbow Jersey

You students of track cycling out there, which was the year the mighty GB squad won their first team pursuit world title. Did you say, 2005? Then you’d be wrong. The GB team pursuit squad won the event some 30 years earlier, in 1973 but ‘gave away’ the title. This is the story of one of the team and that huge decision to let a world title go; from the precocious talent that was Rik Evans.

Chloé Dygert Owen – Winning Rainbow Jerseys for Five Years

How long a career do you need to have to win 10 [yes ten] World titles? US ‘chrono girl,’ Chloé Dygert Owen has won that many and she’s still only 23 years-old; and there are two Pan Am golds and an Olympic silver in the dresser drawer too. High times we ‘had a word’ with the young lady out of Indiana.

Brent Emery – US Olympic Silver Medallist

Following on from his article on the US bikes at the Los Angeles Olympic Games of 1984, Ed Hood spoke the rider who not only rode as part of the team pursuit and was behind the bike design: Brent Emery – Rider and innovator.

Jordan Kerby – “NZ are getting faster at each meet we do”

You’ve been World Pursuit Champion and a regular on the Australian national squad. But then the federation tells you that they think you’ve, ‘gone as far as you can go,’ and you’re out. That’s the end of your international track cycling career in that case? Not if your name is Jordan Kerby whose mother happens to be a New Zealander by birth.

David Solari – Australian AND Italian Champion!

National Champion of two different nations at the same time? Is that possible? If your name is David Solari then the answer is ‘yes’ – and the man made six Worlds podiums in four different disciplines to boot.

Kyle Gordon – Big Plans for 2020 and Life in the HUUB House

But we’re pretty sure that no 100 mile time trial champion has ever been on the keirin podium? Enter, that man Kyle Gordon – quality time tester, ever-improving pursuiter and now sprinter. We caught up with the man from Alness just before he jetted off to Australia and a round of the UCI Track World Cup.

Neah Evans – European Team Pursuit Champion

If you check the palmares websites, Neah Evans' name first pops up in 2015 – just four years later and she’s performing at world level in ladies track cycling as part of the GB ladies team pursuit squad; with her most recent successes coming in the European Team Pursuit Championships and Glasgow World Cup where her squad took gold on both occasions.
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‘The Pursuit’: Team KGF Documentary, the amateurs who shook the world

Filmmaker James Poole made the Team KGF documentary after following the team (now re-launched as Team HUUB Wattbike) for a year on their journey from shock national champions through to World Cup and World Championship success, to create a film which presents the amateur riders' debut season which shook up the track cycling world as they self-funded and out-thought their way to the top.

Dan Bigham – Mixing it with the World’s Best in the Track World Cups

We caught up with the man behind the team and the holder of the record for most British titles won in one season – eight – Dan Bigham, after he returned from a successful foray to Canada where round two of the Tissot World Cup took place on the boards of the Milton Velodrome in Ontario where the men in black came away with silver.

Ethan Vernon – Part of the Welsh Team Pursuit Squad “hoping to go sub-four”

There’s a new kid on the Team Pursuit block, 17 year-old winner of three national championships in 2017, author of a 1:02 kilometre and in the Welsh team which twice recorded 4:01 rides in the recent Commonwealth Games, Mr. Ethan Vernon - another man to benefit from riding with Dan Bigham’s KGF track squadra. Here’s what he had to say to us just the other day...

At Random

The VeloVeritas Years – 2019: The Elite Road World Championships

We didn't realise when we made our way to the Civic Hall in Leeds for the sign-on of the 2019 Elite World Road Championships just what an epic day we were in for; emergency purchasing of umbrellas in the local outdoor centre didn't quite cut it as the deluge lasted almost the entire race.

Rory McGuire – National Trophy Cyclo-Cross Series Round 4 Winner

Cameron Mason isn’t the only Scot, ‘on the up’ in the washing powder-challenging world of cyclo-cross; 19 year-old Perth man, Rory McGuire (Wheelbase-CabTech Castelli) recently took round four of the National Trophy Cyclo-cross Series near Sunderland.

Grant Thomas Tribute, Part Two; “The most stylish bike rider, a gent”

Perhaps VeloVeritas sage and mentor, Viktor summed it up best; ‘he was the coolest – nobody looked better on a bike than Grant Thomas, he was everything I wanted to be in a cyclist.’ We thought that we should share more of the tributes which have been paid to the man.

Cycling Scandals and Gossip – it must be Tour time!

Before we go any further with the Cycling Scandals and Gossip, our apologies for the lack of words and pics on the National road race - the VeloVeritas team were all too busy with that 'life stuff' this week, sorry. However, we'll run them post Tour; to help ease that PTSF - 'Post Tour Stress Disorder.'

Doug Shapiro – US Pro and Joop Zoetemelk’s Tour de France Domestique

Doug Shapiro wasn’t the first American to ride the Tour; that was Jonathan Boyer; or the second, that was Greg Lemond. But he was the third to do so; and not just in any old role – as a domestique for Tour, Vuelta and Worlds winner, Joop Zoetemelk as part of the mighty Kwantum Hallen team. Here at VeloVeritas we thought that he must have a good tale to tell...

Bryan Steel – One of the Original World Class GB Team Pursuiters

We’d expected to be able to hang this interview on another English team pursuit gold in Glasgow – but not so. And for the first time since 2009 the GB team failed to make the podium in the track Worlds back in the spring – probably no big deal in the overall scheme of things where The Olympics are what really count to BC these days. How times change. The GB team pursuit Renaissance began in 2000 in Manchester, and Bryan Steel was an important part.