Team GB

UK Sport has announced its 2010 medal targets for Britain’s summer Olympic sports, and expects the country’s cyclists to come away with between five and ten medals at this year’s UCI World Championships events.

It’s safe to say that Formula One will never figure as an Olympic sport, but engineers at McLaren are aiming to use the technology that helped bring Lewis Hamilton the 2008 World Driver's Championship to help Team GB’s cyclists achieve further gold medal success at London 2012.

Individual pursuit Olympic champion Rebecca Romero has attacked proposed changes to the women’s track programme at London 2012 that, if adopted, will prevent her from defending her title on home soil in three years’ time.

British Cycling today announced the squad of 19 riders that will be competing in the first round of the 2009/10 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics, taking place at the Manchester Velodrome, from October 30-November 1.

Team Sky+HD will be gearing up to take on some of the world’s best sprinters, with Sir Chris Hoy taking part in his first major international competition since his crash at the World Cup meeting in Copenhagen last season.

Prompted by its unprecedented growth, British Cycling is temporarily moving some of its operations out of the Manchester Velodrome to a nearby business park – so the GB cycling team can concentrate on vital preparations for London 2012.

Mark Cavendish has pulled out of the British team for the World Championships in Mendriso, Switzerland, and won't now compete in the road race on Sunday. The 23-year-old recently pulled out of the Tour of Missouri with a lung infection, and has battled to regain his fitness in time to have a pop at the rainbow jersey: it looks like he's lost that battle, which is a big blow both for the Manxman and the British team.

Team GB rider Johnny Bellis was critically injured while riding his motor scooter near his training base in Italy yesterday. British Cycling issued the following brief statement on the incident. 

Bellis is rated as one of Team GBs prospects for London 2012, he came to prominence as a track cyclist, but showed what he could do on the road with an impressive ride to third place in the 2007 world U23 road race. 

British Cycling Statement

Yesterday, while the cycling world waited for it to come down hard on dopers, the UCI published its Technical Regulations for Bicycles – A Practical Guide To Implementation, which may end up coming down hard on the rest of us instead.

From January 2010 any bike used in road, time trial, cyclo-cross or track competiton has to be available to purchase.

It's a measure of how far we've come in track cycling that a day that saw team GB win two silvers and two bronzes could be described as a slow start, but the first day of the World Champs was a slightly disappointing one, particularly for Wendy Houvenaghel and Chris Newton.

Victoria Pendleton is one of the British athletes gearing up for the World Championships in Poland, which start on Thursday.

The Olympic gold medalist has the opportunity of winning four world titles in Pruzskow, but doesn’t sound too confident.

In an article in the Evening Standard, she says: "I honestly don't know how I'll fare.
"The four golds will probably be too much but it's fun to give it a go.”