Great Britain Olympic Programme Track Sprint Coach Iain Dyer has spoken of the challenge in finding the right line-up for the men’s team sprint ahead of the London Track Cup.

Jason Kenny, Sir Chris Hoy and Matt Crampton were selected for the 2011 European Championships in October, finishing fifth after a slipped wheel for Kenny, while more recently Ross Edgar, Jason Kenny and Jason Queally finished seventh at the Kazakhstan leg of the UCI Track World Cup.

Dyer, tasked with forming the right three-rider combination, admitted that Jamie Staff’s retirement in 2010 along with having a healthy choice of sprinters currently on the Podium Programme had meant experimenting with the line-up.

“Jamie Staff was such a very strong man one and when paired with Jason Kenny in man two and Chris Hoy in man three we had a team were we could honestly say each athlete was the very best in the world in that position and that’s a pretty rare occurrence for any team or relay style event,” Dyer said in an interview with British Cycling.

“It was always going to be a very tall order to maintain that performance with different team personnel. For a large chunk of that time we have operated with Jason in one and Chris in two. Now those guys remain, in my opinion, the very best man two and man three in the world and we’ve ridden them out of position for a long time because a lot of the qualities that make them as good as they are in man two and man three have enabled them to be good in man one and man two respectively, but not quite as good as the very best in those positions.

“I think as a result of that we’ve tried various different combinations, we’ve tried Matt Crampton in man three behind those two and we’ve also looked at different man one riders to see if we can push Jason and Chris back up the order and that’s been our plan for quite some time now. But good man ones don’t grow on trees and to be as strong and powerful as you need to be takes a lot of time and a lot of development as Jamie [Staff] demonstrated in Beijing.

“It also takes a very single minded focus. It’s extremely difficult and rare to be a very good sprint and keirin rider and also excel in man one, so Ross Edgar has been dealing with that challenge in the last year or two and I believe at this point has shown really good development and progression in that position.

“It’s our plan to roll Ross out at man one, Jason at man two and Chris at man three at London World Cup and see what that gives us. Unfortunately in the last few weeks Ross has been battling against an injury so we hope that he’ll be on form for London but he might just come up a little short on time to rehabilitate the injury and progress his fitness once again.”

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Simon Gerrans won the Tour Down Under for the second time on Sunday, giving his newly-formed Australian GreenEDGE victory in its first-ever World Tour event. Gerrans, who won the race in 2006 and has won stages of the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana, entered the 90 kilometer (56 mile) final stage around an Adelaide street circuit as the race leader but on the same time as second-placed Spaniard Alejandro Valverde.

German sprint star Andre Greipel won the stage, claiming his third stage victory of the six-stage tour while still finishing more than 24 minutes behind Gerrans on general classification. But Gerrans managed to cover Valverde, to ensure the Movistar rider didn't pick up the time bonuses he needed to claim the overall lead, to give GreenEDGE victory on its World Tour debut.

Gerrans survived a nervous final stage to join Greipel among three two-time winners of the tour. Greipel won in 2008 and 2010 and loomed as a winning chance again this year with wins in the first and third of the tour's six stages. But his chance evaporated when he lost more than 24 minutes on the fourth and fifth stages, which featured the tour's toughest climbs.

Gerrans finished second behind Valverde on Saturday's fifth stage, the longest of the tour which ended with two stiff climbs up old Willunga Hill. He still claimed the overall lead from Valverde, and wore the tour leader's ochre jersey in Sunday's final stage, after a countback of his and the Spanish rider's aggregate placings on previous stages.

Gerrans and Valverde started and finished the final stage credited with the same overall time. But the Australian only had to avoid Valverde picking up time bonuses on two intermediate sprints and the 10 seconds available to the stage winner to ensure he won the race on countback.

His was the second countback win in the race's 14-year history and the first since 2003. Gerrans finished 27th in the final stage and Valverde 24th, both among the body of the field and both credited with the same time as Greipel.

"It's just fantastic," Gerrans said. I can't thank my teammates enough. We had a tough task today to watch Alejandro Valverde but we did a great job."Gerrans still had nervous moments on Sunday. Belgium's Jan Bakelants, who started the stage in seventh place on general classification and 19 seconds off Gerrans' overall lead, took part in a breakaway which led the peleton by more than 50 seconds at time and made him the race leader on the road.

But the three-man break, featuring France's Romain Sicard and Gerrans' teammate Cameron Meyer, was eventually claimed by the peleton on the 19th of 20 laps around the Adelaide Street circuit.

That left the peleton all together for the final lap, setting up sprint specialist Greipel for his 11th win in a Tour Down Under stage. "What can I say?" Greipel said. "The team Lotto-Belisol has just been amazing in leading me out to my third win of the week. "It looks easy but it's not. I was nowhere in the front on GC this year but I'm happy with the sprint finishes."

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The Victorian could be sidelined for two months after suffering concussion, a broken cheekbone and an arm fracture in a Friday training crash. Docker was training at Bright, Victoria when he went off the road, apparently to avoid a car.

It is understood the incident was an accident. "Mitch has a minor fracture on his hand and his cheekbone, but neither require treatment," team doctor Peter Barnes said in a statement posted on the team's Facebook page. "He had a major concussion and for that reason he still needs to be under observation and further examination.

"I spoke to him this morning and he's already feeling significantly better."Robbie McEwen, a member of their team at the Santos Tour, posted a message of support on Twitter before the start of Saturday's fifth stage at Willunga. "Doing it today for Mitch Docker and wishing him a speedy recovery," McEwen said.

GreenEDGE has had an unlucky run of crashes over the last few weeks. A pe-Christmas accident during a training camp forced New Zealander Julian Dean out of their Tour lineup. Jack Bobridge crashed and hurt his hand earlier this month in the time trial at the Australian road championships, also making him a late scratching from the Tour.

Last Sunday, while riding to the start of the Down Under Classic race in Adelaide, Bobridge's replacement Luke Durbridge hit his head in a crash. Durbridge pulled out of the Classic, but was able to compete in the Tour.

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Australian Will Clarke was given a hero's reception by thousands of raucous fans after bringing a 140 km breakaway all the way to the finish of the Tour Down Under's second stage Wednesday. Swiss rider Martin Kohler of the BMC team took possession of the race leader's ochre jersey from German Andre Greipel as the chasing peloton were outdone by the determined UniSA rider. "This is unbelievable really," said Clarke.

"This is the biggest win of my career -- it's my first win on the WorldTour."Yet at the start of the day, Clarke had somewhat more modest ambitions. He and Kohler had been part of a four-man break which attacked just after the start of the 148 km ride over undulating terrain from Lobethal to Stirling. And after the Swiss had pocketed most of the day's points, and bonus seconds at the intermediate sprints, which would prove crucial later in the race, he returned to the bunch with over two laps of a 26 km finishing circuit left.

Clarke started the penultimate lap with a massive lead of 11 minutes on the chasing peloton, which by now had put some big engines from Team Sky, GreenEdge, Rabobank and Movistar up front in a bid to close the gap. Despite seeing his lead brought down to 7min 30sec at the start of his final lap, Clarke held on to solo over the line in 3hr 58min 35sec. Olympic team pursuit champion Geraint Thomas admitted the favourites had underestimated Clarke, and had spent too much time marking each other.

"We just underestimated how strong he was," Thomas, of Team Sky, said. "There was a bit of bluffing, seeing which teams were going to ride... we started going and a few teams came up (to help), but unfortunately we didn't get him back on the line. "But fair play to him, great ride."Australian Michael Matthews of Rabobank won the group sprint for second place a minute later, with Simon Gerrans of GreenEdge third, Alejandro Valverde of Movistar fourth and Sky's Edvald Boasson Hagen fifth.
"This is unbelievable really," said Clarke, who failed to find a spot with a WorldTour team last year when former team Leopard folded.

"I was up the road with a BMC rider (Kohler) to get some sprint points and I kept going when he went back to the peloton. "He probably thought it wasn't worth keeping going. The peloton gave me more time and I thought, 'you guys are going to have to chase me hard catch me'. But I was dying in the last 10 km."
Swiss time trial champion Kohler, who spent 130 km in a breakaway on Tuesday, takes the overall lead by two seconds from two-time race winner Greipel thanks mostly to the bonus seconds he took at the intermediate sprints.

But heading into Thursday's third stage, an undulating 134.5 km ride from Unley to Victor Harbour, the race is still wide open with most of the main favourites within 12secs. "This means a lot, because it is my first leader's jersey," said Kohler. "But its going to be really hard for me to defend the jersey because I think the last two days I have lost a little bit of energy."

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German star Andre Greipel was critical of the course and rival cyclist Alessandro Petacchi after a chaotic end to the Tour Down Under's opening stage. Three riders, including Greipel's key Lotto-Belisol team-mate Jurgen Roelandts, and a 70-year-old woman were taken to hospital after a crash just under 1km from the finish.

More than 20 riders came down in the crash and one of the riders who veered off to the side of the road collided with the female fan. She was taken to hospital with minor injuries. Roelandts was taken to hospital for x-rays on his neck, while Matteo Montaguti (Ag2r) has a suspected fractured collarbone and Frederic Guesdon (FDJ) has a hip injury.

It is the second-straight year a crash has marred the end of the opening Tour stage. Last year, there was an horrific pileup on the finishing straight at Mannum. The temperature soared above 40 degrees on Tuesday during the 149km stage from suburban Prospect to Clare, north of Adelaide, and there were also blustery head and cross winds.

The brutal conditions meant the stage finished nearly 40 minutes behind schedule. But Greipel, who now has nine stage wins in the Tour, was most critical of the slightly-downhill finish. "Okay, it's a part of our job, nobody tells us that we have to sprint, but the organisation should calculate the risk a little bit for us," said Greipel, the overall Santos Tour winner in 2008 and '10.

"We did 75km/h and if there's something that happens you cannot react anymore." Race director Mike Turtur said the nature of the finish was made clear to the teams at a pre-race meeting. "It's dead-straight, straight as an arrow finish - at the technical meeting, everyone was advised it was slightly downhill, so it was going to be fast," Turtur said.

"We couldn't have emphasised it more. "I will speak to Andre to see what his issues are." Greipel was also angry at Petacchi's tactics as the pair had a photo finish.

"He went from the left to the right ... I think he didn't care what happened behind him," Greipel said. "Maybe he didn't see me but I think it was just not fair." The new Australian GreenEDGE team had another tough day, with Luke Durbridge suffering heat exhaustion.

His race uniform at the finish was caked in salt from his perspiration. GreenEDGE did plenty of work to help reel in a four-man break that gained more than 11 minutes on the peloton. The attack, which lasted about 130km, featured rising Australian star Rohan Dennis, a member of the UniSA national team.

The crash meant only a small group of less than 20 riders contested the sprint finish. But because the accident happened so close to the finish, the first 90 riders were given the same time. Greipel leads Petacchi overall by four seconds heading into Wednesday's second stage, a 148km race in the Adelaide Hills from Lobethal to Stirling.

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Waikato rider Peter Latham has won gold on the penultimate night of finals at the UJCI World Cup in Beijing. Latham took out the men's 4000m individual pursuit over Australian Mitchell Mulqueen to highlight the New Zealand performances at the Beijing Velodrome, the venue for cycling at the 2008 Olympics.

Latham, who turned 28 last week, topped qualifiers in 4:26.100. He had to show all his experience to win the final against the Australian, who started strongly to open a two-second lead after 1000m. Mulqueen was still ahead at the three-quarter mark but Latham's experience and conditioning came to the fore with a superb final 1000m in 1:06 to earn victory in 4:25.964.

Olympic hopeful Joanne Kiesanowski is in a share of second place after the first day of the women's omnium. The Christchurch professional was fourth in the 200m flying lap in 14.826, a fraction outside her best, but placed only 13th in the points race. Kiesanowski bounced back with a brilliant ride to finish second in the elimination race pipped in the final sprint by Russian Evgenia Romanyuta, the former world junior champion and current European points race champion.

Romanyuta leads overall after three rounds on 11 points with Kiesanowski in a share of second place with China's Mei Hsiao on 19 points, with the individual pursuit, scratch race and time trial to conclude the contest tonight. In other racing Eddie Dawkins (Southland) finished 10th in the men's keirin, after qualifying when he won his repechage.

Fellow Southland sprinter Natasha Hansen qualified eighth fastest in the women's sprint in 11.397, a fraction outside her Oceania record. She lost to Cuba's Lisandra Ridriguez in the round of eight and to China's Jinjie Gong in the consolation quarter-final. Otago's Katie Schofield clocked a personal best 11.551 in qualifying but was 1/100th of a second off qualifying for the elimination rounds.

Finals results:
Men 4000m individual pursuit, gold medal: Peter Latham (NZL) 4:25.964, 1; Mitchell Mulqueen (AUS) 4:26.267, 2; Bronze medal: Kevin Labeque (FRA) 4:28.519, 3; Valery Kaykov (RUS) 4:29.328, 4.

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ONCE a trailblazer on the international scene for Malaysian cycling, Loh Sea Keong is now resigned to switching the jet-set lifestyle of a Europe-based professional cyclist to modest Kuala Krai, Kelantan, his hometown.

Having failed to find a team for the new season having spent five years with Dutch-Chinese team Marco Polo racing around Asia and Europe, 25-year-old Sea Keong feels he would rather take some time off.    "The timing this year was all haywire. There were some teams interested but the deals didn't suit me, so I'm just going to take a break in my hometown," said Sea Keong.

Sea Keong was the first of the current generation of Malaysian cyclists to sign with a UCI Continental team when he joined Marco Polo as a trainee in 2005. He featured regularly for the Chinese squad in Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) and had been a regular member of the national team.

Injury forced Sea Keong out of the Sea Games  last year after crashing heavily in training, but he doesn't see the national team's training camp as a suitable long-term career destination. "I was asked by some officials to join the national team's training camp in Kuala Terengganu, but after thinking it through, I declined," said Sea Keong.

"I'm used to being independent  and I will continue trying to find a private foreign team  to sign me this year.    "In the meantime, I'll just head home to Kuala Krai and train on my own to keep myself in shape."Asked how long his self-imposed lay-off will be, Sea Keong said it would be until he finds a new team. "I think I'll give it two years. If I still don't have a team by then, then I'll quit cycling for good," he said.

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Spanish cycling star Alejandro Valverde says his time away from cycling due to a two-year doping suspension has given him a new perspective on the sport. Valverde was banned for two years from January 2010 after being implicated in Operation Puerto, a blood-doping ring in Spain involving more than 50 riders. He gave up the No 1 world ranking in the process.

The 31-year-old Valverde makes his return to racing at the January 15-22 Tour Down Under in South Australia, the opening ProTour event of the year. He'll lead the all-Spanish Movistar team. Valverde said through a translator on Wednesday that he had no expectations for the tour but was calm and wanted to enjoy the race.

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Peter McDonald is the inspiration for every non-GreenEDGE team rider at this weekend's Australian road cycling championships. The new Australian professional team will be a monolithic presence in the men's and women's road races on the tough circuit at Buninyong, near Ballarat.

The GreenEDGE men have a super-sized squad of 16 riders - effectively two normal-size road teams - in Sunday's 163.2km event. Their GreenEDGE-AIS female counterparts gave a sneak preview of their intentions ahead of the 102km women's race on Saturday when they dominated the national criterium title on Thursday night.

GreenEDGE have made it clear for several weeks that the first major team objective is to win the national road champion jerseys, especially in the men's race. But then there's the story of McDonald.

He was a hard-working, low profile rider in the domestic Drapac-Porsche team who found himself in the right break during the 2009 nationals road race. As usual, the field was stacked with top-level professional cycling talent and McDonald's big problem was he had esteemed company at the finish.

Columbia-Highroad team-mates Michael Rogers and Adam Hansen were McDonald's rivals in the break and the general consensus was that one of that duo, probably Rogers, would win. But McDonald somehow outsprinted the pair for the most remarkable result since the nationals were revamped in 1999.

Columbia-Highroad team manager Allan Peiper famously had a quiet word with Rogers and Hansen post-race and he warns something similar could happen again. 'There is a chance that someone like a Peter McDonald could pop up and take the crown,' said Peiper.

'They (Rogers and Hansen) messed it up, as it were, but it's a difficult situation to turn back the clock and say you should have done this or you should have done that.'As a team director at Garmin, Peiper is now on the other side of the fence heading into Sunday's race.

Garmin riders Heinrich Haussler and Nathan Haas have the credentials to win, but they are the Davids against the GreenEDGE Goliath. 'For guys who are low on (team) numbers, it's going to be difficult to control,' Peiper said.

'They're going to have to play it by ear a little bit. 'They (GreenEDGE) are in a strong position and obviously anything can happen. 'If it comes down to a sprint, with five riders or 20 riders, someone might just pop up.'

Officially, collusion is not allowed in the national titles, but inevitably riders outside GreenEDGE will make pre-race deals or form unofficial alliances as the men's and women's races unfold. GreenEDGE men's team director Matt White is acutely aware that while his riders are the favourites, they must be watchful and disciplined.

'It gets a little more complex when you have 16 guys on the start line, White said. 'But if everyone sticks to the plan, it becomes quite simple.  'It's managing 16 egos and managing the team's one goal.'

Adding to the potential for problems is that radio communication between riders and team managers is no longer allowed. So the team meeting the night before will be critical and White said the simpler the plan, the better.

White was a director at Garmin when team member Travis Meyer won in 2010 and Jack Bobridge made a stunning solo attack to take out last year's event. Meyer, his older brother Cameron and Bobridge are all now with GreenEDGE. So are Matt Goss (second last year) and Simon Gerrans (third), while team leader Stuart O'Grady also has focussed on being ready for Sunday.

Gerrans, O'Grady and perhaps Cam Meyer or Leigh Howard are the top GreenEDGE chances. White said they will have 'five or six' riders who can win the title. But there will be no 'protected' rider - a top contender with three or four team-mates who will look after him throughout the race.

The hilly nature of the 10km Buninyong circuit makes that impossible. Instead, GreenEDGE will probably try to emulate Garmin's tactics of the last two years - set a high early tempo, make sure someone with good form is in an early break and see what happens. 'If you have someone in the early break, it totally takes the pressure off the guys behind,' White said.

The other key for GreenEDGE is managing rider egos. So far, a feature of the team has been a strong team spirit and this will undergo a stern test in the weekend's high-pressure racing. I don't have to put too much pressure on the guys. They know how valuable that jersey is,' White said.

'But as long as they know the value is on one of us wearing it and not them individually, then we're in a good situation on Sunday.'

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THE distraught family of missing Co Antrim cyclist Samuel Campbell have told how “we just want him home”. The 49-year-old went out for a bike ride from his home in the Kells area on New Year’s Day. He didn’t come home. Police have said they are very concerned about the father-of-three, but are hopeful he is still alive.

Laverne Campbell, 47, said “there was nothing” which could explain her husband’s disappearance. Mrs Campbell last saw him on the Tully Road in Kells, close to Ballymena, at around 2.15pm on Sunday.

Mr Campbell, who is 6ft, slim with short, dark hair, was wearing a red top with the letters TCG and black tracksuit bottoms. He was riding a white road bike. Detective Inspector Bob Blemmings said police were “extremely concerned” about Mr Campbell and, despite high winds, the PSNI helicopter had been deployed.

He said that extensive searches of the Ballymena area are also being carried out by police officers, sniffer dogs, partner agencies and the local community. David Campbell, the missing man’s elder brother, said: “We just don’t know what the situation is. We can only tell you that we wish he was back again.

“We work together – he is an electrical contractor and I’m a building contractor. We are the youngest of five boys and are very close. “Some people call him Sammy and some call him Sam. He has a wee grandson Troy. Saturday was Troy time and you couldn’t have got Sam to do anything on a Saturday morning.”Mrs Campbell said her husband “did everything 100 per cent”. “He is committed to his work, his family and to cycling. He did everything 100 per cent. He wanted to get his training started early and that is why he went out on Sunday.”David, who also cycles, said: “Once we are up and running we could do 50 miles on a run. Sam is quite capable of it.

“We just want anyone who saw him to contact the police so he can be found. We want as much information as possible to try to get him back.”David added that the police have searched a 20-mile radius looking for his brother.

“They are doing all they can, and we are doing all we can,” he said. “We are asking for anyone who saw him to contact the police. We just want him to come home. He was out riding on his own, which is not unusual. There was nothing unusual other than he didn’t come back.”David added that his brother is a “well-known man” through his church work, cycling and business. Earlier, Mr Blemmings, who is leading the operation, said “extensive” searches are being carried out.

The detective said police were following a number of lines of inquiry – including that Mr Campbell had become ill or had an accident. He appealed for farmers to check outbuildings and laneways. “We are following several lines of inquiry but we really need more information on where he was last seen. The potential is that he had taken ill and is sheltering somewhere,” he said.

“It is crucial that anyone who has seen him contact the police in Ballymena as soon as they can.”Mr Blemmings said there has been huge support in the search for Mr Campbell from his family and friends.

“He hasn’t cycled much over Christmas and this was him coming back into training with 20 or 25 miles. We are continuing to check a local route that he had taken - but that is not to say that he had not gone somewhere different.”Mr Blemmings said extra officers were being drafted in from outside the area to continue the search.

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