Clancy sets sights on GB track gold!

Mar 26 2008 by Andrew Flynn, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

FORMER Holme Valley Wheeler Ed Clancy heads into tomorrow night’s team pursuit at the World Track Championships in Manchester with high hopes of winning gold again with Great Britain.

Clancy, 22, a former student at Huddersfield Technical College is rated the fastest ‘first man’ in the world in the team event and seems certain to take his place in the hugely competitive race for a place in the GB team.

GB won gold for the second time in three years at the 2007 worlds in Majorca and this time round – after winning the 2007/08 World Track Cup with three victories from three attempts – they go into the Championships as favourites.

Clancy is one of six GB riders training hard at Manchester for the event with the others being Bradley Wiggins, Geraint Thomas, Paul Manning, Steve Cummings and World Championship rookie Steven Burke.

In fact, after winning seven gold medals in Majorca, the GB Team have a lot to live up to at the World Track Championships – seen as a stepping stone to the Olympics in August. The five-day championships are being televised each night on BBC2.

While Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins launches the home nation’s quest for gold tonight in the individual pursuit, local hopes will be pinned on Clancy and his teammates tomorrow.

The main opposition for the gold in the Team Pursuit will come from the Aussies, the current world record holders, who have named a strong six man squad for the team pursuit of Brad McGee, Luke Roberts, Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster, Jack Bobridge and Mark Jamieson.

But Clancy and co are concentrating on honing their own form rather than worrying about the opposition.

It’s a massive development for Clancy, who went through a rough patch around the time of the Commonwealth Games in 2006, and said afterwards that he expected to be building houses or at university rather than still racing.

Clancy, who now has a house in Newton le Willows, spends much of the year racing on the road in Belgium. But much of his training is still designed to building the power and strength needed for winning performances in the four minutes or so of racing that make up the team pursuit.

His training build-up at Manchester was hampered by a cold – but he was still a clear second faster off the line than anyone else.

Clancy said: “The Team Pursuit seems to be one of the things I am good at so I concentrate on it and do my best. It just seems to be my physical make up which makes me ideal for the event. I think out of all the endurance riders, myself and Steven Burke are more sprint orientated endurance riders and to be a good team pursuiter you have to have good aerobic power but you also have to be a punchy rider – not a level power one – very on off and you have to be able to make big numbers on the front.

“I think barring illness or injury I feel pretty safe in the team. I have done a good job during the World Cup season and I hope my health holds out and I can’t wait to rip around here and have a go at this world record.”

A noisy home crowd will obviously give Clancy and the whole GB squad a boost for a championships that has brought entries from 300 riders (207 men and 93 women) from 37 nations.

Said Clancy: “Having the home crowd here will be great and I am hoping everyone comes along and enjoys it and gets behind us for the Olympics. I think the whole GB team will do something special come the Olympics.

“It’s one thing doing the Worlds and Commonwealth Games but the Olympics is everything this programme is about, what everybody talks about and something everyone, the public, knows about. I hope I can go there and treat it like just another bike race.”