GB Para-Cycling Squad to train at Bournemouth Track

Great Britain’s Para-Cycling squad will put the finishing touches to their Paralympic preparations on the Bournemouth track.

Eamonn Deane writes …

Four members of the London 2012 team, Jody Cundy, Rik Waddon, Jon-Allan Butterworth and Verwood’s Darren Kenny plan to spend 3 days from 31st July to the 2nd August at the Ensbury Park venue. As well as their individual disciplines, three of the four will contest the team sprint, so all four will be looking to impress the coaches.

Kenny, Cundy & Waddon all won medals four years ago in Beijing and have a wealth of experience between them. Butterworth however, will be riding in his first Paralympic Games The former RAF man joined the squad through the the Battle Back programme after losing his left arm in a rocket attack in Iraq in 2007.

Ahead of the Bournemouth camp, Kenny will be training in the mountains of Norway. Lead Coach Chris Furber says “Training in Bournemouth will fulfil a few different elements. It will enable us to convert some of the road form from Norway into some track strength work. It will also enable the riders that spend most of their time on the indoor track to develop more strength due to the wind and the grippy surface outdoors.”

“It will also give us the opportunity to get away from staring at numbers. You can get a bit of number overkill on the run in to the games, obsessing about hundredths of a second. The outdoor track will allow us to get away from that. And primarily it is an opportunity to get the four team sprint lads together to work on some sprint drills”.

The selection of the three for the team sprint will take place just before the holding camp begins in August.

Bournemouth track is an “open venue” how does Furber feel about spectators coming along to watch the training sessions? “Absolutely,the more the merrier, it will be fantastic for us to go to Bournemouth and show people Para-Cycling, you’ll get a lot closer to the riders there than at the Paralympic games in London”.

From Eamonn Deane