The long awaited European Track Cycling Championships is finally here, taking place from November the 5th to 7th at Pruszkow’s BGZ Arena in Poland.
Introduced as a result of the new Olympic qualification guidelines the UCI has imposed on the sport, the European Championships have previously only been open to U23/Junior riders and unlike the World’s other continents/cycling regions such as Oceania, Asia and Pan-America, senior riders across Europe have not been able to fight it out for the chance to become European Champion.
Europe has a limited number of spaces in the Olympics for all events. In the Team Sprint for both Men and Women, European countries can only qualify five places, so only the top five countries in Europe will be represented in the Team Sprint. Each of these countries will then automatically qualify an individual spot in the Keirin and Sprint so nations that are strong in the Team Sprint such as World Champions Germany, France, Great Britain will automatically have a place in the Sprint and Keirin as well as the Team Sprint in 2012.
This will mean that the strongest riders from each country, for example Gregory Bauge for France and Sir Chris Hoy for Great Britain will automatically secure a ride in the Sprint and Keirin. Riders such as Greece’s Christos Volikakis and Denis Spicka of the Czech Republic who may not have a strong Team Sprint team but are strong in the individual events can qualify on their own performances in each event so could take up one of the four individual spots each for Europe.
Despite the controversy surrounding the new one rider one nation one event strategy adopted by the UCI, the European Championships is set to become a legendary annual event on the Track Cycling calendar that kick starts the professional season in Europe.