A squad of 19 riders will head to Hong Kong for the 2017 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, which begin on Wednesday 12 April.
The Great Britain Cycling Team squad will feature Olympic champions, seasoned world championships riders and a host of athletes making their senior world championships debut.
The first championships after an Olympic Games are a fantastic opportunity for raw young talent to test their mettle against the best in the business, while the more seasoned performers get a chance to try for individual glory.
The team
Women’s endurance
Katie Archibald
Elinor Barker
Ellie Dickinson
Neah Evans
Emily Kay
Manon Lloyd
Emily Nelson
Men’s endurance
Matt Bostock
Steven Burke
Kian Emadi
Chris Latham
Mark Stewart
Andy Tennant
Oliver Wood
Sprint
Jack Carlin
Katy Marchant
Lewis Oliva
Ryan Owens
Callum Skinner
Joe Truman
Endurance
Olympians Katie Archibald and Elinor Barker will head to the championships as the senior members of the women’s squad at just 23 and 22 years old respectively.
The endurance riders have had a successful season on the track so far, with a youthful line up of Manon Lloyd, Ellie Dickinson, Emily Nelson and Emily Kay picking up gold in the team pursuit at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Glasgow in November.
Lloyd also partnered Archibald to an historic victory in the first ever world-level women’s Madison at the same event, while Kay took gold and silver in back-to-back omniums in the autumn world cup rounds.
Nelson too has tasted podium success with a silver medal in the omnium in the third world cup round in Cali, while Barker managed two medals from the series; gold in Apeldoorn and bronze in Los Angeles.
The men’s line up contains Steven Burke, now two-time Olympic gold medallist in the team pursuit, who will return to the Great Britain Cycling Team for the first time since the European championships in October.
Andy Tennant and Chris Latham will return to world championships action, after competing for the Great Britain Cycling Team in London in 2016.
Tennant came away with silver and a bronze from those championships, while Latham will be hoping to make his first world championships podium this year. Kian Emadi will also be making his second world championships appearance, this time as an endurance rider, having switched disciplines from sprint in 2015.
The three remaining riders on the men’s endurance squad will be making their world championships debut; Mark Stewart, Ollie Wood and Matt Bostock.
19-year-old Bostock has had an excellent season both on and off the track, with some impressive Six Day results and a world cup gold medal from the team pursuit in Glasgow. Stewart and Wood are both team mates and roommates and will be spending even more time together as they race the Madison on the final day of the championships.
Sprint
Katy Marchant has returned from Rio with a bronze medal in the women’s sprint and a new-found belief in herself. Having spent much of the autumn at a keirin training camp in Japan, Marchant will see if her hard work has paid off when she lines up for all three of the individual sprint disciplines in Hong Kong.
Callum Skinner will return to the world championships stage with two Olympic medals and high hopes of bringing home a rainbow striped jersey in one of the individual events. Lewis Oliva will also be on the hunt for individual glory; the British champion in the keirin will look to make the podium in Hong Kong after a season of world class performances.
An all-new team sprint line up will take the place of the Olympic trio at these championships, as Jack Carlin, Ryan Owens and Joe Truman will hope to replicate the kind of form that saw them take two gold medals from their first senior world cup meetings. It’s hoped that the Hong Kong track will prove to be a winning one for the new-look team sprint line-up on Wednesday night.
Venue
Situated in the picturesque Velodrome Park and opened in 2013, the Hong Kong Velodrome hosts a 250m wooden track and seats up to 3000 spectators.
The velodrome hosted the final round of the 2015/16 UCI Track Cycling World Cup series, the prelude to the record-breaking world championships hosted by London a month later.
The Great Britain Cycling Team had some success at the event, notably Callum Skinner and his team mates Jason Kenny and Phil Hindes winning the team sprint, heralding their golden performance in Rio.
Schedule (UK times)
Wednesday 12 April: 8am-2pm
Medals decided: Women’s scratch race, men’s team sprint
Thursday 13 April: 8am-2.50pm
Medals decided: Men’s team pursuit, women’s team pursuit, men’s scratch race, men’s keirin
Friday 14 April: 6.30am-3.10pm
Medals decided: Women’s omnium, men’s points race, men’s individual pursuit, women’s sprint
Saturday 15 April: 5.30am-3.25pm
Medals decided: Women’s 500m time trial, men’s omnium, women’s Madison, women’s individual pursuit, men’s sprint
Sunday 16 April: 3am-10am
Medals decided: Women’s keirin, men’s 1km time trial, women’s points race, men’s Madison
How to follow
- Follow the action with live updates on Twitter, Facebook and unique behind the scenes action on Instagram Stories.
- Live blog of the evening session on the British Cycling website, reports, galleries and interviews.
- Watch all evening sessions live on the BBC Sport website, with selected sessions live on BBC Two and BBC Red Button services.
- Watch all evening sessions live on Eurosport.
