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Women’s Cycling on Track

Becky James wins GoldBritish Cycling has announced that its ambition to get a million more women cycling by 2020 is ‘on track’, with more than 100,000 women already having participated in their flagship programme this year. ‘In the six months since we launched our strategy we’ve made some great progress and our plan to get one million more women cycling over the next seven years is firmly on track,’ says British Cycling’s Chief Executive, Ian Drake, ‘We’ve got some fantastic headline figures that we’re announcing today. They show that there are thousands of women who want to ride recreationally – a big win for our partnership with Sky, especially the fact that over a third of the 100,000 women we’ve engaged so far this year was through Sky Ride.’

 

The Women’s Cycling Strategy, which was launched in March, aims to capitalise on the appetite for cycling generated by the London Olympics and his been followed by the news that the International Cycling Union (UCI) has given the Women’s Tour of Britain a 2.1 status for its launch in 2014 – a further boost to the cause (see the Cyclo news story here).

 

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Maria Miller, who was involved in the original strategy launch commented, ‘It’s fantastic that British Cycling’s women’s strategy has got off to a flying start. The approach to promote both recreational cycling as well as sportives to women is clearly paying off. With great role models such as Laura Trott and Becky James, an increase in women’s races, a Women’s Tour announced and more female coaches coming through, the sport is in a great position to keep up this momentum.’

 

For further information on the general Sky Ride scheme see goskyride.com and for details of the women-only Breeze events click here.

 

Read the Cyclo feature on Breeze here.

 

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A Journey of Inspiration and Opportunity

A Journey of Inspiration and OpportunityThe national governing body British Cycling has launched its campaign to encourage a far greater take-up of cycling, at all levels, by women. Announcing plans at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – in the esteemed company of Becky James and Jess Varnish – the plans, supported by almost £70m in government funding over four years, should see one million more women cycling by 2020 in addition to greater representation within coaching and official positions.

 

Outlining the challenge ahead in their publication A Journey of Inspiration and Opportunity, British Cycling highlight the fact that only one in four once-a-week cyclists are women, one in five of cycle sport participants are women and a somewhat woeful one in seven British Cycling members are women.

 

The goals for the scheme include getting ‘more women cycling more often’, particularly through participation in schemes such as Breeze and Sky Ride, ‘creating opportunities to ride and race’, which will include establishing a series of entry-level races at ‘key facility hubs’, and getting ‘more women running the sport’ by growing the number of opportunities for women to become coaches, volunteers, leaders, officials and tutors.

 

For further details and to read the online version of A Journey of Inspiration and Opportunity see britishcycling.org.uk

 

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Becky James Golden Girl

Becky James wins GoldBecky James has taken her second world title in just 24 hours after a spectacular win in the Keirin to add to yesterday’s World Sprint Gold – add this to the 21-year-old’s bronze medals for the TT and Team Sprint and she becomes the first Brit to ever win four medals at a single World Championships. Her success brings to an end Team GB’s campaign in Minsk, which sees them sitting atop the medal table with nine in total including five golds. British Cycling Performance Director Sir Dave Brailsford had described this first step on the Road to the Rio Games as ‘a changing of the guard’, with an intriguing mix of established and fresh talent competing in the absence of old hands like Victoria Pendleton and Sir Chris Hoy.

 

Certainly Laura Trott, having had to settle for silver in the Omnium (losing her world title to Sarah Hammer), will have been disappointed but compensation came in the form of gold last Thursday in the Team Pursuit and elsewhere Team GB performed – frequently outperformed – across the board. On the strength of the last few day’s competition this fresh squad, including the absolute one-to-watch Elinor Barker, are going to deliver miles of dramatic competition ahead of the 2016 Olympics.

 

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Becky James Dominates at Nationals

Despite only making the reserve list for the Women’s Team Sprint at the London Olympics, Welsh cyclist Becky James yesterday proved herself the undisputed star of the British Cycling National Track Championships, taking her fourth victory in five days. Defending her Keirin title in utterly dominant fashion, she added to her tally, which already included the 500m Time Trial, Team Sprint (with her sister Rachel) and Sprint. Speaking after the event the 20-year-old said: ‘I’m really chuffed and I had in my head what I wanted to achieved and I think it went better than expected… It’s a big event for me. In recent years I’ve had Vicky Pendleton dominating but there’s not that many women riders and I’m really happy because it’s a great start to the season.’

 

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Poor Show at World Cup

Medals are thin on the ground thus far for Team GB on day two of the UCI Track World Cup Championships, which are taking place in Astana, Kazakhstan. The Team – Matt Crampton, Ross Edgar, Sir Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny, Jason Queally (Men’s Sprint), Becky James, Jess Varnish (Women’s Sprint), Ed Clancy (Men’s Omnium), Dani King (Women’s Omnium) – have thus far failed to really shine with Varnish and James held back in bronze by Germany in the Team Sprint, whilst in the Omnium European Champion Ed Clancy only managed seventh for the day after three disciplines – 13 points off a medal, despite a win the flying lap. Still plenty to play for in this the first round of the Championships, which tomorrow (Sunday, November 6) sees Chris Hoy in action.