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Clean sweep for foreign stars as Japan’s Keirin World Series begins
International riders have participated in Japanese domestic keirin for the first time since 2019 – and despite the unfamiliar rules, tracks and equipment, all four claimed comfortable victories. The three-day meeting at Hofu is the first in the so-called Keirin World Series of 10 events from June to September. Mathilde Gros (yellow, 5) – who…
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Richardson’s round-the-world dash to race at Glasgow Games
Matthew Richardson may be the fastest man on a bicycle in history: but how quickly can he fly back from Japan to Scotland… and recover sufficiently to compete? That’s the challenge facing the English sprinter and his coaches, following confirmation that he will be part of the Team England squad at this summer’s Commonwealth Games.…
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DerbyWheel website returns after ominous outage
Access to DerbyWheel’s website was restored early on June 1st, following an outage lasting several days, which raised concerns among prospective participants that the project had finally expired. At some point on or around May 28th, the derbywheel.com website was replaced by an error message from its hosting provider Wix, declaring: ‘Looks like this domain…
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Egypt’s Mohamed retains African keirin title
Egypt’s Shahd Mohamed retained her African keirin title with victory on the final day of the continental championships in Abuja, Nigeria. With two laps remaining in the final, the riders squeezed together into corner one, and South Africa’s Amber Hindmarch – bronze in sprint and kilo, earlier in the week – was brought down on…
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Spies claims another African keirin title in Abuja
Veteran South African rider Jean Spies won another African men’s keirin title, his 37th continental title in all, with a dominant performance in Abuja, Nigeria. The 36 year old double-Olympian was drawn in position one for the final – and never surrendered first place, as riders competed for podium places behind. At the line, it…
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Jong-jin wins latest round of Korea’s defining rivalry by one-eighth of a wheel
Jeong Jong-jin made it three wins in a row in the rivalry which defines Korean keirin, leaving it to the very last moment to snatch victory from Im Chae-bin at the Gwangmyeong Speedom. The K-Cycle Star Race event, billed as a prelude to June’s Keirin King Of Kings meeting, went to a photo finish as…
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Korean delegation discusses a new Seoul velodrome on visit to UCI HQ
UCI president David Lappartient has hosted a visiting delegation from the Korean Sports Promotion Foundation (KSPO) at his organisation’s Aigle headquarters. KSPO was founded in 1989 under Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, tasked with promoting continued use of the Olympics facilities, and promoting sports for the general public. Most intriguingly, this includes the…
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Foreign riders will face veterans and future stars in first Japanese races
We now have a little more detail of what awaits the international stars invited to race in Japan this summer, in the Keirin World Series. Provisional start lists for the first two events in the series have been published – revealing, somewhat unexpectedly, that we will not see all six foreign guests at all the…
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Sato’s cheque for All Girls win is 100x more than Wang’s UCI prize
One rider notably absent from the UCI’s Track World Cup in Nilai was the organisation’s world champion, Mina Sato. She opted to stay at home, and defend her All Girls Classic G1 title, her seventh G1 title in all – and a continuation of her streak in the sport’s top-graded events. Sato’s recent record in…
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China’s spring roll continues as Wang wins in Nilai
Wang Lijuan claimed the win in the women’s keirin in Nilai, adding another gold medal to the Chinese sprint squad’s recent haul. The 23 year old, fourth in both previous rounds of the Track World Cup, won her two early rides on the day; but could only manage third in her semi final behind Emma…
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Fairytale home farewell for the Pocket Rocketman 🎥
Malaysian master Azizulhasni Awang delivered the performance his fans so desperately wanted, winning the men’s keirin in his final major racing appearance on home soil before his (supposed) retirement at the end of this season. Much of the build-up this week had focused on the mutual respect, and the likely duel, between the winners of…
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How many riders line up at each National Championship?
In several Global Keirin articles lately, we have reflected on the relative strengths and weaknesses of different countries. Some boast dozens of international-class riders; some literally only have one. So we wondered… how many riders show up at each country’s National Championships? The necessary data is – or certainly should be – published in Dataride,…
