The tenth season of the Revolution series kicked off at Manchester with a new two-session format and an even greater level of professionalism as the UCI’s new tiered qualifying structure for track cycling takes a bow. There was some cracking racing, too…
With qualification for the World Championships now dependent on World Cup qualification points from a shortened three event series – and qualification for the World Cup series in turn dependent on points earned at tier 2 international events, the Revolution series has stepped up to the mark and now mixes UCI Sprint and Endurance events and some old Revolution favourites – as well as the Future Stars competition, which remains a fundamental part of the programme.
The opening session on Saturday afternoon saw the qualifying and opening rounds for the Sprint competitions with Matt Crampton of Great Britain clocking 10.124 to top the seedings for the later heats. Team mate Jason Kenny was second on 10163 with Callum Skinner completing a GB 1-2-3 with a 10.201.
More of a surprise was the Women’s qualifying where Junior World Champion topped an all British top 5 with an 11.184 – five hundredths ahead of Senior World Champion Rebecca James. Katy Marchant rounded out the top three just a couple of hundredths behind James.
The afternoon session isn’t only about qualification and one of the highlights of the session was the UCI Men’s Points Race. Team USN’s Jon Mould took the opening sprint and scored in another six of the 16 but it was the four laps he took over the field – two more than second placed Owain Doull of the Telegraph Allstars – that provided the bulk of his 97 points. Doull clocked up 68 thanks to three sprint wins and a number of seconds and thirds with Rudy Project Racing Team’s Christian Grasmann 17 points back in third.
Wiggle Honda’s Dani King took the Women’s UCI Points Race, scoring in all but two of the 10 sprints and winning two of them. She actually finished a lap down on second placed Anastasia Chulkova but, while the Russian lapped the field twice, she only managed two third places in the last two sprints and ended up a point adrift of King’s total of 45. Leire Olaberria of Spain finished third on 35 points.
The only event in the afternoon session which isn’t a UCI points scoring race is the Men’s Flying Lap – which does, of course, count for the Revoluton championship. Four riders went under 14 seconds. The first of them was Jon Dibben of Sky on 13.904, less than a tenth behind Madison Genesis’ And Tennant on 13.824.
There was then a gap of just over two tenths to Steven Burke of the Telegraph Allstars and then two tenths more to winner Ed Clancy of Rapha Condor JLT on 13.358.
