Snowy times! I still don’t quite get it why track cycling supposedly is to be a winter sport now (thanks to the UCI), but in Copenhagen it sure was! Too bad I forgot my digital camera back at home…

With snow covered roads and Danish buses not having any winter tires(?!), it was all hit or miss with transfer between the track and the hotel. Oh, and we did some racing too!

In the Keirin (my first at WorldCup level) I was quite a bit tense before the start, as I got French rocket Gregory Baugé in my heat, plus I had the “luck” to draw number seven at the start too. With no other option I tried a long sprint with an early attack to the front, but my stamina didn’t quite let me allow to hold off the pack to the finish line.

Second was a hard task too, with Ross Edgar and Travis Smith in my heat and only the first rider to advance to the next round. Again, an aggressive early move didn’t quite pay out as Edgar was just too fast and drew Smith with him in his wake.

In hindsight, I was more or less pleased with my first WorldCup Keirin effort - it was a great learning experience and I found out I wasn’t really that far of the pace at international top level at all. (17th place overall) Oh, and I didn’t crash like quite a few other guys, including Olympic and World Champion Chris Hoy. I guess he wasn’t used to see the superfast French guys coming around him quite so easily…

Next day up was the sprint - but to be honest I’d rather forget about that one. After the wind up for the 200m time trial I actually managed to clip the saddle with my tracksuit while getting back onto the saddle. As a result I couldn’t get back on it properly and was just hanging there on the tip. It’s no miracle my time did suffer accordingly…

At least my bike looked posh with the posh Mavic wheels from our national team: