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Stunning wins for Richo and Lysenko as TCL gets going
Matthew Richardson visibly gave it absolutely everything, barely able to stand at the end of a first evening of UCI Track Champions League action which saw him distance Harrie Lavreysen to win the sprint – and snatch victory in the keirin final. The season’s opening night in Paris was billed as a rekindling of the…
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Dead heat means no semi-final place for world champion Yamasaki
UCI world keirin champion Kento Yamasaki has failed to reach the S Class semi-finals at the prestigious Kokura Festival. Riders needed to finish first or second in their qualifying race on day four of the festival, to make progress in the major competition. Yamasaki led the race out of the final corner, but Yohei Yamada…
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Sato victory at Kokura Festival vindicates decision to miss TCL
World keirin champion Mina Sato showed her class once again, leaving it late to launch her attack in the final of the women’s competition at the Kokura Keirin Festival. But she timed it to perfection, passing her former Japanese national team colleague Riyu Ohta a few metres before the finish. Ohta held on for second,…
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Track Champions League returns to standard UCI keirin distance
Our well-connected amigo over at Track Piste is reporting that the keirin races at this year’s UCI Track Champions League will be contested over the UCI-standard 6 laps, as opposed to the abbreviated 5-lap format of previous years. Scratch races will also be extended from 20 to 30 laps, for both men and women. These…
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DerbyWheel CEO presents branded race helmet
We wouldn’t normally get excited over a single photograph, posted in a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ Instagram story, on a personal account. But with the DerbyWheel organisation having gone silent for weeks, if not months, it’s a major event to see CEO James Pope posting a photograph this evening of a piece of actual equipment…
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Rain instead of rainbows as Kento comes home to Japanese keirin
World keirin champion Kento Yamasaki is already back competing on the Japanese pro circuit, and dealing with some decidedly non-UCI conditions and race tactics. The 31 year old returned to competition at a wet Takamatsu outdoor track on 29 October, less than two weeks after his historic victory in Ballerup. Dressed in white, by virtue…
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Another Japanese sprinter quits national team to return to keirin
World championship finalist Fuko Umekawa has announced her retirement from Japan’s national track programme, citing both exhaustion and financial pressures. Writing on Instagram following her fifth-place finish in Ballerup, the 33-year old declared she was ‘not satisfied with it at all’. So today’s statement, posted on the website of Team Rakuten K Dreams, has come…
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Yamasaki and Sato opt for Japanese races over UCI Track Champions League
UCI world champions Kento Yamasaki and Mina Sato have both turned down the opportunity to compete in the UCI’s Track Champions League. Information posted on websites tracking the Japanese keirin circuit suggested that both had committed to major events in their home country during November and December, building to the lucrative year-end Grand Prix races.…
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Faced by Korean challenge, speed skating launches a new World Tour
DerbyWheel is the successor initiative to IceDerby, a plan by the same Korean investors to transform the sport of speed skating, by offering game-changing prize money fuelled by gambling receipts. IceDerby faced opposition from the sport’s governing body, which ultimately ended up in a case before the Court of Justice of the European Union. In…
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American arena racing series winds up for 2025 launch
A US-based initiative to launch a velodrome racing series has confirmed plans to begin operations in 2025. TeamTrak Cycling League will take a portable and expandable track to four American arenas, building to a championship finale in Worcester, Massachusetts in October. Within five years, they hope to expand the series to twenty events. ‘We’ve worked…
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Confirmed: track cycling will be part of Commonwealth Games programme
Track cycling has been confirmed as one of the 10 sports included in a slimmed-down Commonwealth Games, to be hosted in Glasgow from July 23 to August 2. The Scottish city stepped in when the Australian state of Victoria withdrew its hosting offer, citing escalating costs. Interest from Malaysia and Singapore came to nothing. That…
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Japanese keirin success at Worlds: an opportunity to expand the sport?
It has taken a little longer than they had hoped; but Japan’s investment in international track cycling is beginning to produce results. French sprint coach Benoît Vêtu was appointed head coach of the Japanese national track team in 2016, following successful spells in Russia and China. His objective? To deliver medals at their home Olympics…
