Eight riders from Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling will be riding the boards of the Lea Valley Velodrome, London, in the second round of the 2014/15 World Cup this weekend. Olympic Champions Joanna Rowsell and Laura Trott will be joined in the Great Britain team, on the track that saw them take glory in 2012, by fellow World Champion Elinor Barker. Amy Roberts – who was part of Great Britain’s victorious team in the previous round of the World Cup, in Guadalajara, Mexico, in November, will be riding for the Welsh Cycling Federation’s Team USN this time.
Having sat out last month’s Guadalajara round to concentrate on her training, Rowsell, the World Individual Pursuit Champion retakes her place in the team as the journey to the next Olympic Games, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016, begins.
“I’m feeling a lot fitter than I was,” Rowsell said. “After the Euros I had a bit of time away from the team, just doing a bit of different training while they were in Guadalajara, which went really well. I went to Mallorca for a couple of weeks.
“I raced the Revolution, which was nearly two weeks ago now, and was going well there, so everything was good.
“There’s been a bit of illness in the camp, which so far I’ve managed to avoid,” Rowsell explained. “But generally, I’m feeling good, looking forward to racing on Friday. We’ve got five of us, so we’re not sure of line ups yet, but we’ve got options. We’ve got three rides in one day, and we can be a bit tactical if needs be, with swapping people around, so we’ve got fresher legs when we might need them. But that’s not all decided yet, so watch this space!”
“We’ll see who rides what,” Rowsell added. “But it’s going to be a big challenge to ride three 4-ks in one day – I don’t think anybody’s ever done three in one day before – so hopefully that’ll play into our hands because we’ve got five girls. It’ll be a challenge, but hopefully it’ll be alright.
“If we can have a good weekend here then hopefully it’ll be another tick in the box in terms of qualification for Rio,” she concluded.
Two-time road World Champion Giorgia Bronzini will compete for Italy in both the Scratch Race and Points Race, as she builds towards next year’s World Championships, where she will hope to take a second track rainbow jersey to add to her Points Race title from 2009. Bronzini will be joined in the Italian team by Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling teammate Beatrice Bartelloni, who will once again be part of a constantly improving Team Pursuit outfit.
Also representing their countries in the Team Pursuit will be Australia’s Rebecca Wiasak and Germany’s Charlotte Becker, who was prevented from contesting a possible bronze medal in Guadalajara as her entire national team was struck by food poisoning.
Sadly, his weekend’s World Cup marks a last race as Wiggle Honda riders for Barker, Rowsell, Trott, Bartelloni and Becker, but the event will also see appearances from two riders that will be joining the team in 2015.
Belgian Champion Jolien D’hoore will be competing in the Omnium, fresh from her victories in the Guadalajara round of the World Cup, the International Belgian Open and the Ghent Six-Days, while Audrey Cordon will be part of France’s Team Pursuit squad as it builds towards qualification for Rio 2016.
Photo Credit (1 & 2): BritishCycling.org.uk
Photo Credit (3): SWPix.com
