GLASGOW // Cycling gets underway at the Commonwealth Games today with a large number of world-class riders spread across track, road, mountain bike and the new games discipline of para-cycling.
Track cycling will be one of the highest-standard competitions held at Glasgow with world-championship-level fields in many of the events.
Some of the world’s fastest men and women on two wheels will line up on the 250-metre track at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome to pedal for individual and team supremacy.
Read more: Top 10 athletes to watch at Commonwealth Games
Although the six-time Olympic champion Hoy will not compete on the track that bears his name, plenty of top-class competitors will be competing in the 17 events at the venue.
The Glasgow Games were given a boost when England’s Sir Bradley Wiggins announced he would compete, though his earlier ambitions to ride both indoors and outdoors have been pared back to competing in the team pursuit.
The 2012 Tour de France winner has not competed on the track since 2008, but he said he quickly felt comfortable there and decided to pass on riding in the road time trial.
England’s golden couple Jason Kenny and Laura Trott will prove hard to beat on the track.
Trott, the double Olympic champion and recently crowned 2014 British National Road Race champion, will be targeting the endurance track events, including the individual pursuit, points and scratch races.
The Olympic champions Dani King, Joanna Rowsell, Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Philip Hindes are also in England’s line-up.
Hoping to make headlines in the endurance events will be Scotland’s Katie Archibald, who in recent months has gone from a virtual unknown to a world and European champion in the team pursuit.
Archibald, 20, is also expected to compete in the time trial and road race, giving her five medal opportunities. Australia dominated the cycling events at the Dehli Games in 2010, taking 14 gold medals from 18 events.
Four-time track cycling world champion Anna Meares will be a favourite to retain her 500m time trial and individual-pursuit titles.
The Australian, 30, is a reigning Olympic and triple Commonwealth Games gold medallist and will compete in the sprint events.
One of her main challengers could be teammate Steph Morton, who has previously found success at the Paralympics, winning gold as a sighted guide in London in 2012,
New Zealand’s men will be hoping to break a 12-year gold drought. One of the favourites to bring this run to an end for the Kiwis is Simon van Velthooven, who has a good chance in the keirin, in which he won Olympic bronze in 2012.
The road time trials take place on July 31, only four days after the Tour de France ends, and the road race is on August 3.
The proximity to the Tour predictably has impacted on who will compete in the men’s road race.
However, Australia will still have plenty of muscle to flex in the men’s cycling event, despite missing several big names.
Rising star Caleb Ewan, lead-out specialist Mark Renshaw and all-rounder Simon Clarke will be the main riders in the seven-man team.
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