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Golden stars to stay at Velodrome

Nicole Kenny
22/ 8/2008

CYCLING success at the Olympics has convinced Manchester’s golden heroes not to abandon Beswick for London.

The track cycling team, who have won seven gold medals in Beijing this week, have snubbed a new £80 million state-of-the-art centre being built for London's 2012 games to remain at the Velodrome.

The whole team, including triple gold winner Chris Hoy, practiced and trained at the 14-year-old centre at Eastlands.

But fears were growing that the national team would abandon the 4,000-seater Sportcity facility for a new 6,000-seater velodrome in the capital.

Now these have been allayed following the team’s spectacular success in China - which so far has seen them clinch a record seven gold, three silver and two bronze medals.

Peter King, British Cycling chief executive, said: "British Cycling is committed to Manchester and has no intention of moving.

"We are working with Manchester City Council to enhance and expand the already excellent facilities that we have here in Manchester."

A spokesman for the British Cycling Federation added: "We're not saying the riders won't use the new Velodrome. They would be mad not to before the Olympics, but Manchester will remain our main headquarters for the Olympic and Paralympic squads."

Jarl Walsh, Velodrome general manager, said he hadn’t wanted to "count our chickens" by predicting lots of medals in Beijing but wasn’t surprised because of the nine golds won at the Track World Championships in March.

He added: "We are all thrilled to bits for them. People took a huge risk in investing in us nearly 15 years ago, but with what we are producing it is paying off.

"They are a lovely group of people. We know them personally as well as professionally and it's nice to see a bunch of nice people doing well.

"It's not a surprise that the team are staying in Manchester. Why would they move everyone down to London when they have everything here?

"I think it would have been a big risk to move everyone down for 2012 and would have upset a lot of people.

"Hopefully now there will be an increase in office space, as we are bursting at the seams."