British Cycling has announced its squad for next month’s UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics in Glasgow, with a strong line-up including the World and Olympic women’s team pursuit champion trio of Dani King, Joanna Rowsell and Laura Trott, while Ed Clancy swiches from endurance to sprinting events.
Other gold medal winners from London 2012 named in the squad for the event, which runs from 16 to 18 November include men’s sprint champion Jason Kenny plus Philip Hindes, the pair partnering Sir Chris Hoy to team sprint success.
It’s been public knowledge for a while that Hoy, after whom the Glasgow velodrome is named, won’t be competing at the World Cup – he is hoping to be ride here for Scotland when the venue hosts the Commonwealth Games in 2014 – and the third berth in the men’s sprint events goes to Ed Clancy, who won gold in the team pursuit at both Beijing and London and is now looking to switch discipline.
Only one member of the quartet that won men’s team pursuit gold this summer will be riding in that event in Glasgow, Steven Burke, with Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh now focusing on preparing for the 2013 road season with Team Sky.
Burke is joined in the men’s endurance events by Andy Tennant, who was in the Olympic team but didn’t get a ride, plus a quartet of younger riders with their eyes on a place at Rio in 2016 – Jon Dibben, Owain Doull, Sam Harrison and Simon Yates, with Joe Kelly named as reserve.
With Victoria Pendleton now retired, Becky James joins Jess Varnish in the women’s sprint events to round out the squad.
The pair took team sprint gold in the opening round of this season's World Cup in Cali, Colombia earlier this month, an event to which Great Britain sent just three riders, with four others there to represent the recently launched Welsh track cycling team looking to build towards the Commonwealth Games in two years' time.
James and Varnish took silver and bronze respectively in the individual sprint at Cali, where Kian Emadi-Coffin got silver for Britain in the men's kilo.
Mould, named in the Great Britain squad for Glasgow, represented the new SWI Welsh Cycling team at Cali and won bronze in the points race, while the Welsh women's team pursuit trio of Elinor Barker, Ciara Horne and Amy Roberts won silver in that event.
British Cycling Performance Director Dave Brailsford said: “The period of time immediately after an Olympics is an interesting one for the team as it allows us to try out new line-ups and look at how the younger squad members are developing.
"The men’s team pursuit will be interesting for us in that respect, and I’m also looking forward to seeing how Ed gets on in the Sprint events.
"Now that the London Olympics are behind us I’m hoping we can carry some of that momentum on into the World Cup and I know the whole team is looking forward to racing again in front of a home-crowd on our first step towards Rio.”
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