Clancy, Burke & Tennant to Candi TV
BRITISH TRANSFER MERRY-GO-ROUND
Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Andy Tennant are set to ride for Phil Griffiths' Candi TV-Marshalls Pasta team. Russell Downing leaves to join Team Sky. The three riders are all products of British Cycling's Academy programme and last season Clancy and Tennant raced for Halfords. All three were part of the Great Britain team pursuit squad that was just a second and a bit outside the world record at the Manchester World Cup. Clancy is an Olympic team pursuit champion, while Burke was a bronze medallist in the individual pursuit in Beijing.
Rapha Condor have been boosted by the news that national champion Kristian House turned down an approach from Dutch team Vacansoleil to stay with the squad. Graham Briggs returns to Rapha Condor after a year with CandiTV.
Rapha Condor's team manager John Herety had signed Alex Dowsett, who was an excellent seventh in the under-23 time trial at the World Championships in September. However, they had an agreement to release him if a Pro Continental team came in for him. Vacansoleil made an approach, and then there was interest from the Trek-Livestrong team run by Lance Armstrong. "Even though they are not Pro Continental, we feel that if there is an opportunity to join the LiveStrong-Trek team it is one we can't stand in the way of," said Herety. The deal is expected to be confirmed soon.
Meanwhile, Rapha Condor have signed Jonathan Tiernan-Locke from Madison. There are another few pieces of the Rapha jigsaw to be put in place with riders from Australia and New Zealand also in the frame.
Former Rapha Condor riders Simon Holt, Rhys Lloyd, Liam Holohan and Dale Appleby are set to ride for the new Raleigh team. Simon Richardson leaves Rapha to join Sigma Sport.
Ian Wilkinson has joined the Endura Racing team for 2010.
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TOUR SERIES
While several British teams have issued press releases stating their intention to compete in the 2010 Tour Series of televised criterium races, no places have been awarded yet.
Last year's 10-race series ran from mid-May to the end of June, with races held each Tuesday and Thursday. CW understands the series will again be ten races but dates, venues and teams have yet to be confirmed.
Rapha Condor manager John Herety is hoping that the dates will be confirmed soon, because he has several objectives to balance as he seeks to plan the racing programme for 2010.
"Last year the first race in the Tour Series clashed with the FBD Insurance Ras in Ireland and we're hoping that won't be the case again," said Herety. "The Ras is a great event and it's really good for the riders, so it would be better for all the British teams if there wasn't an overlap."
Herety has the added complication that commercial interests in Japan mean the team would be interested in riding the Tour of Japan, which is also held in May.
And the Rapha boss said the 2010 season was set to be a big year for the team. "We know we've got to up our game, because there's going to be so much attention on Team Sky we need to make sure we still get a look-in."
NEW ACADEMY RECRUITS
Four young riders joined the British Cycling Academy programme, and started their work in Manchester at the start of this week.
National road race champion George Atkins, Tim Kennaugh, younger brother of Team Sky's new pro Peter, Chris Whorrall, who like Kennaugh is from the Isle of Man, and Jon Mould are the new recruits.
Olympic team pursuit champion and world record holder Paul Manning is set to step up his involvement as a coach for the Academy, working with Max Sciandri.
Meanwhile, another building in the Tuscan town of Quarrata has been acquired so that British Cycling's Academy and Team Sky staff and riders can operate alongside each other. This will provide Team Sky with a meeting and training base whenever they need it. The team's other headquarters will be in Manchester, and Mechelen, near Brussels.
100 WORLD CUP WINS FOR GB
Victory for the women's team pursuit squad on Sunday afternoon was Great Britain's 100th win in World Cup history.
Wendy Houvenaghel, Lizzie Armitstead and Joanna Rowsell's world record ride was also the 10th win of the weekend for British riders.
The UCI introduced the World Cup track series in 1993. Graeme Obree was Britain's first World Cup winner when he took the individual pursuit in the Athens round of the competition two years later.
Britain's first team pursuit World Cup win came in Athens in 1997, when Jonny Clay, Matt Illingworth, Bryan Steel and Phil West beat Denmark.
Once the World Class Performance Plan funding began to flow in the late 1990s, the number of particpants at World Cup level increased, with two Scottish riders called Chris Hoy and Craig MacLean and an Englishman, Jason Queally, making great strides in an event which was then called the Olympic sprint.
In 1999 the trio won twice - in Mexico City and at Fiorenzulo d'Arda. Queally also won the kilometre time trial at Valencia - foreshadowing his gold medal at the Olympic Games in Sydney the following year.
As the Athens Olympics approached, British World Cup success became a more frequent thing. Hoy and Queally battled for supremacy in the kilometre, and a young rider with a rapid sprint - Victoria Pendleton - won her first World Cup race in Sydney in 2003. However, Pendleton's first win did not come in the sprint or the Keirin, but in the scratch race.
In 2004, British riders had their most successful season - winning nine World Cup events, five in Sydney and four at home in Manchester.
After Athens, the UCI reorganised the track calendar, making the World Cup a winter series.
In the run-up to the Beijing Games, Britain rose to the pinnacle of world track cycling. Aided by an almost complete domination of the Manchester World Cup a year ago - where British riders won 14 of the 17 events - they racked up a record total of 23 wins in the season.
In fact, half of Britain's total World Cup wins have been earned in the past three seasons. And they got this campaign off to a flyer with 10 wins, which also brought up the century.
So, which rider has delivered most World Cup wins for Britain? It's no surprise that Chris Hoy holds that honour. The Scot has won 28 World Cup gold medals in a career that spans more than a decade. Of those, 14 have come in the team sprint (formerly Olympic sprint), eight in the kilometre, five in the Keirin and one in the sprint.
GB WORLD CUP WINS BY SEASON
1995 - 3
1996 - 0
1997 - 2
1998 - 0
1999 - 3
2000 - 1
2001 - 1
2002 - 5
2003 - 4
2004 - 9
2004-05 - 5
2005-06 - 7
2006-07 - 17
2007-08 - 10
2008-09 - 23
2009-10 - 10 (after one round)
Total: 100
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Sports journalist Lionel Birnie has written professionally for Sunday Times, Procycling and of course Cycling Weekly. He is also an author, publisher, and co-founder of The Cycling Podcast. His first experience covering the Tour de France came in 1999, and he has presented The Cycling Podcast with Richard Moore and Daniel Friebe since 2013. He founded Peloton Publishing in 2010 and has ghostwritten and published the autobiography of Sean Kelly, as well as a number of other sports icons.