London UCI Track World Cup 2012

great suprising attack. i thought after the one against hoy last year in march he will never do that again. really funny and a great end of the day. but still hoy is the king, not only for beating bauge, winning the sprint and the keirin with a great last 2 laps.

That was great. Shame it came just after a conversation I was having with my gf about why that never happens.

Ha! Exactly the same thing happened to me.

It's also on BBC 2 tonight for those not able to go.

Crikey! that bottom lip must create a bit of drag.

Just back in the door now. Pretty wrecked after just spectacting in there!

Great to see Chris Hoy up close in action on the track, the guy is a true athlete and gentleman, seeing him offer his respect up to Tommy Godwin who was presenting him with the Sprint medal was inspiring. His faceoff against Gregory Bauge was probably the best race of the day, going to the third game decider. Thought Bauge was on a one year ban for blood doping though? Jason Kenny afaik is competing with Hoy for the Olympic spot but seeing the two of them compete today there really still is only one choice...

I reckon Pendleton will have been disappointed with today in the Keirin, she didnt seem to have much acceleration, esp. compared to Guo Shuang (or is that Shuang Guo?) who just appeared calm and collected every time she flicked on the turbo boost switch in her legs. Fair enough though, she did win gold on the Friday night. The two younger female team members Varnish and Trott did alright, Trott was pretty impressive on the 500m time trial - part of that might have been the crowd roaring her along the straights like an audio mexican wave. I imagine both of them will be ones to watch in the future.

Saw you there on the tv today!

Stott was pretty impressive on the 500m time trial

He's always had it.

Thought Bauge was on a one year ban for blood doping though?

He was banned for 12 months for two whereabouts misdemeanours and one missed test, not blood doping.

I reckon Pendleton will have been disappointed with today in the Keirin, she didnt seem to have much acceleration, esp. compared to Guo Shuang (or is that Shuang Guo?) who just appeared calm and collected every time she flicked on the turbo boost switch in her legs. Fair enough though, she did win gold on the Friday night.

She said in her little interview on the telly that her legs were just knackered and she didn't have anything left, and also that she hadn't done much work on tactics yet in her training as it had all been about the sprinting.
Interesting that both Pendleton and Varnish did the same thing in their finals, sit at the back behind the derny and then were unable to make it all the way to the front of the group.

He's always had it.

Doh.I put my typo down to fatigue.

had a great night yesterday, was with a crowd of interested but unpassionate friends who didn't get into that much apart from the one on either side of me!

chris hoy came across really well, his lap (s) of honour seemed as though he was really appreciating the crowd.

matt crampton crashed right in front of us and his arse looked soooo sore, so big respect to him for getting back on for th 7-12 final in the keirin.

thought meats and pendleton knackered themselves out in their semi final rather leaving the other two an easy route to winning the minor and major finals, bit of a shame as thee final was underwhelming in comparison....

Laura Trots elimination was one of the most exciting sporting events i've ever seen live, brilliant riding, sitting behind the huge dutch girl throughout really paid off!

went on friday had a brilliant time
what a venue that place is.... got my first chance to view the olympic park activities aswell
the canal ways and green areas are looking lovely cycle / footpaths criss crossing green areas like around the mile station area, i had forgotten quite how large an area had been developed for the olympic park / stratford city / westfield area
the velodrome was as beautiful from the outside as it was from the inside got a good look at the BMX track as i walked around the venue looked like a heap of mud if truth be told i,m sure they'll pretty-fy it before the summer

inside it was a really nicely organised free flowing venue my first view coming in was the bit pit area in the middle and a view down the steepest part of the banking you could walk around and stand pretty much any where you wanted with great views from every spot ( well aprt from dublin kev who seems to have been shoved as far into the corner as it was possible to be ) (although a corner on the middle of a round velodrome doesn't compute ! )
saw the two world records on friday night and then as ed says above watched the coverage on the bbc
the trott devil take the hindmost race was one of the best ever i've seen on the track ( albeit on BBC ) , all she did each eliminator lap was to beat the weakest rider, she didn't expent too much energy jusy staying one in front of the last rider what an effort from the last 10 or so i was on the edge of my seat BRILLIANT

I can only give my experience there 10/10 great great venue

now if anyone has any olympic tickets please let me know

Great time on Friday eve. No hassles getting in or out.. In fact we didn't wait at all for a bus. They seemed to have fine tuned the operation.

Despite it being a sell out there was quite a few empty seats about.. We were sat right on the finish line and next to the "Guest" block of seating. Very disappointed to see this section pretty much half empty all the time as the suits wafted in and out from their private bar. Meh.

Fantastic venue and atmos though. Plus the whole park looks amazing. Feel very lucky to have seen a couple of WR's broken.

well aprt from dublin kev who seems to have been shoved as far into the corner as it was possible to be ) (although a corner on the middle of a round velodrome doesn't compute ! )

No no, we had great seats. And agreed - the staff were quite casual about allowing people stand up at the barriers on the promenade area to watch the action, it was very easy to get a good view from pretty much anywhere.

But I had read an article on the Guardian about how some seats had limited views - the architect said that there were one or two snags. I just wanted to see how bad it was.

as it has sold out in minutes for every event
i don't understand why they didn't make the velodrome a little bit larger
i was suprised at how few seats there were for a world class venue
capacity of 5,000 ? something like that
what with cycling in the UK being very popular now i could see 7-10K people at every event for every session

agreed, future commercial promoters must be well pissed off, Berlin can get over 14,000 inside.

how many does manchester hold ?

much less than London I believe

care to quantify that ?

according to google it's 3,500 ? london 6,000

London is 6000 yes. Olympics sell out of course as will any world champs. But these are few and far between. Any other meetings, World cup, Revolutions (?) etc won't so 6000 is large capacity to fill really.

Is the Pringle going to be a cycling only venue? or will they have other events, such as concerts or pet shows like Berlin does and Manchester used to?

Pet shows?

I'm definitely in for seeing small animals raced round the track. Sounds awesome.

me too looks hilarious

Rod Munch has got to be able to do something with that.