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Less than two years from the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome, future Olympic site, is hosting the 2022 edition of the Track Cycling World Championships from October 12 to 16. What a great dress rehearsal.
A remnant of Paris’s candidacy for the 2012 Olympic Games finally obtained by London, the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome was inaugurated in 2014. On Wednesday October 12, nearly five thousand people will be in the stands, as every evening until ‘see you on Sunday. ” The big event will be the Games. But we are not going to devalue a World Championship, it is the highlight of the year “, underlines Florian Rousseau, legend of the French sprint and now in charge of the Olympic program of the French team.
Nearly 400 athletes from 50 countries will delight an already won over audience, who will get a taste of what will be on offer at Paris 2024. That’s it, here we go again, all the nations will be present. They also come to take benchmarks in competition and explore how they will organize themselves for the final preparation of the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. “, explains Florian Rousseau.
A delegation from Paris 2024 presents
Organized under the aegis of the International Cycling Union (UCI), the World Championships will be supervised by the organization of Paris 2024. A delegation will be present each day to see how the competition unfolds at the level of the reception of the teams , the public, or scrutinize transport issues and safety management. A rehearsal that will provide essential information for the preparation of the event in 2024. If twenty-two events are on the program of the World Championships, twelve events (individual and team sprint, keirin, team pursuit, omnium* and American, in the men’s and women’s categories) are currently on the Olympic program.
Among the big names of these Worlds, we find Filippo Ganna, at the head of the Italian team. On Saturday, October 8 in Switzerland, he set the new hour record, covering 56.792 kilometers on the track of the velodrome in Granges. Dutch track superstar Harrie Lavreysen is also on board after winning two Olympic titles and nine world championship titles, including two last year at the Worlds in Roubaix, already in France. Great Britain, long the first power of the track before the rise of the Netherlands, is betting on Ethan Hayter, 24, gold medalist in the omnium last year.
France want to shine at home for Paris 2024
At home, the French are aiming to redeem themselves from their failure at the Tokyo Olympics (2 bronze medals) with Benjamin Thomas, quadruple world champion and titled last year in the points race. France, a traditional power in track cycling, a big supplier of medals at the Olympic Games, remains the most successful nation in history at the Worlds. But in recent years, the Blues have been overtaken by the British and other nations such as the Netherlands, new kings of the sprint.
Florian Rousseau refuses to display a quantified objective. But he points out that ” the selected athletes have all climbed on international podiums » and that they have « therefore the ability to go and play for the first places “. At the European Championships last August in Munich, the Blues returned with an encouraging harvest of 15 medals, including six gold. ” Above all, I expect a good attitude, that we defend the colors of the jersey well, that we fight to the end. It’s true that in recent years, we weren’t the best. What I can say is that the guys will be hungry “says Grégory Baugé, quadruple world champion and new national sprint coach. The French track cycling team has only one goal: to shine at home in 2024. And the Worlds will allow them to know how much work remains to be done to be on top on D-Day.
* The omnium is a very recent discipline in the history of the Olympic Games. The race takes place in a peloton with four events: the scratch, the elimination race, the points race and the tempo race. Everything takes place on a day of competition.