One of the big heroes of the weekend’s final round of the Track World Cup on the new London Velodrome was VeloNation’s newest blogger Joanna Rowsell. The Great Britain rider, who comes from less than 20 miles from the track, in South London, took gold in the Team pursuit on Friday evening, and then followed that with a second victory in the Individual event the following day.
The trio of Rowsell, Dani King and Laura Trott smashed the World record for the women’s 3000 metre event in the process, sending a message to the rest of the World that Great Britain’s women are going to be the ones to beat when cycling returns to the London track for the Olympic Games in August.
“I’m really, really pleased,” Rowsell told VeloNation after the event. “I’m really, really pleased with our time in the Team Pursuit, as well as the win. I mean, we wanted the win, but we also wanted to set a good time as well, so to get a new World Record was really, really good.
“It’s something really positive, to take that and move on, and hopefully better that time.
“It was also great to win the individual pursuit as well,” she added. “That was the second event; I’ve not done any training for that at all, but I wanted to give it a go and see how I did. I’m really, really pleased to get a second gold there as well.”
Rowsell is a two-time World champion in the Team Pursuit - from Manchester, England, in 2008, and Pruszków, Poland, in 2009; she was not part of the team that re-took the title from Australia in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, last year though, and was the only member of the team not to be wearing the rainbow jersey in London.
When Rowsell, Trott and Wendy Houvenaghel qualified in second place behind Canada, the decision was made to bring King in for the final. Houvenaghel was the one to lose her place but, despite not having been part of the World championship team, Rowsell was confident of keeping her own place.
“I wasn’t too concerned really,” she said. “Our ride in qualifying we weren’t overly happy with, but we’d still done enough to get into the gold medal ride, so ‘job done’ in that sense.
“But I wasn’t too concerned, I think,” she explained. “I was in the ‘man one’ role, and so I was kind of confident that they’d keep me in there; but you never know until you’ve had the meeting; you’re always kept on your toes; you’re not quite sure what decision they’re going to make.
“No one’s ever certain, but I was quite confident.”
Fresh legs from King see the World record smashed
The introduction of King saw the British trio improve its performance from 3:21.370 in qualification, to 3:18.148 in the final, beating the Canadians by eight-tenths of a second. Both the British and Canadian times - as well as that set by Australia in the bronze medal race - broke the record set by the United States in the altitude of Aguascalientes, Mexico, at the 2010 Pan American Games.
“She was fresh,” said Rowsell, “and Dani’s really good; she’s got really good control and really good feel; she can really feel the pace, and she’s got really good decision-making as well, which is really important in the Team Pursuit because if you can’t hold the pace you need to get out; or do longer turns, or shorter turns, depending on how you feel.
“She’s really good at all that side of things, in her pace control, and she really settles the team; she’s a good person to have in the squad.”
Great Britain has a traditional rivalry with Australia in most sports, but in cycling it is most keenly felt in the Team Pursuit - especially in the men’s event. The performance of the Canadians in London though, indicates that this summer’s Olympics will be far from a two-horse race.
“Canada have come up really quite recently,” Rowsell explained. “I’ve had an eye on them; they did a good time at the Pan-Am Games - I think it was in October they did that - so I’ve been aware that they’ve been coming; but you never know who’s going to come out really, when it comes to the Olympics.
“There’s lots of teams coming through, but definitely Canada, the US has got a good team, and then there’s obviously the Australians…”
Team Pursuit won, onto the Individual event
With all the euphoria of the Team Pursuit victory, and new World record, on Friday, Rowsell had to refocus for the Individual event on Saturday. Not only did she qualify fastest, but she went on to win the event, ahead of New Zealand’s Alison Shanks.
Victory in the final was far from a sure thing however, as Rowsell’s qualification time had been less than a tenth of a second quicker than Shanks’. The race promised to be a close one, but the British rider managed to extend her advantage to just over a second by the finish, despite Shanks riding a faster second kilometre.
“I went out in qualifying to ride to a schedule,” she explained. “I knew that riding a ’33’ [a time of 3:33 - ed] should get me into the final, because I was off quite near the end and I knew Shanks was the only good rider to come.
“I delivered that, and I was quite confident that there was more to come in the final, so I was looking forward to a good race really,” Rowsell continued. “I thought it would be close; I won by over a second, which was good, but I didn’t know if it would get closer. So it was good, and I was pleased to win that race.”
Having been part of the record-breaking team, Rowsell should be in no danger of making the line up for London in August; with a demanding schedule in the Olympics though, Team Pursuiting is very much a squad event.
“We’ve got the four of us, and I think they’ll take all four of us to the Olympics,” she explained. “They may use all four riders, because there are three rides at the Olympics, and two of them are only about an hour apart. So having some fresh legs in there for one of those rides might be really useful.
“We’ve kind of just got a squad of four, and the four if us will be working together towards the Olympics. Obviously, we all want to be in that final three, but I’ll keep working hard, keep doing what I’ve been doing, and keep moving on; basically.”
Building momentum on the way to the Olympic Games
Great Britain topped the medal table in the London event and, while not all of its stars managed to come away with the victories that the partisan crowd expected, the experience on the Olympic track has been invaluable.
“It’s been such a positive weekend,” Rowsell explained. “We’ve all come away, as a team, really, really happy. Everyone’s done really well, or they’ve had great learning experience, and got great things to work on and build on towards the Olympics.
“Overall, for GB to top the medal table is absolutely awesome, and that’s where we want to be really.”
Crowds at major track events in Britain are some of the loudest in the sport, particularly when the home team is performing well, so to ride in such an atmosphere on the venue that will host next summer’s Olympics has given the British team a real lift.
“It really starts the momentum, and really gets us going for the rest of the year,” Rowsell said. “It’s a great way to start the year; a really, really good World Cup for the whole team.
“The crowd were awesome, and it’s great to have that experience, because we don’t get that experience very often. We’ve only got one more race between now and the Olympics, so it was really great to have that experience, and remember it, and take everything away from this weekend, and look forward to August.”
The weekend also saw Rowsell add another skill as she - as well as King, and road rider Lizzie Armitstead - played the part of trackside-pundit for the BBC, alongside sports presenter Jake Humphrey.
“That was good fun,” she laughed. “It was a little bit nerve-wracking, but not too bad, but it was a good new experience, and good to meet everyone at the BBC and I hope I did okay.”
You did Joanna, you did.
The next event for the British team will be the World championships in Melbourne, Australia, between April 4th and 8th. As with everything in British Cycling, Rowsell’s next few weeks have been meticulously planned so that she, and the rest of the team, arrive in the best possible shape.
“We’re going to a training camp next week,” she explained, “and then we’ve got a little bit more time on the track; and then we;ll be off to Melbourne towards the end of March, about two weeks before our race so there’s plenty of time to adjust to the time difference and get ready to race again.”
Look out for a new blog from Joanna Rowsell soon.