UCI Track Nations Cup: quality action on the track, but opening night falls flat, as Hongkongers stay away
- The UCI Track Nations Cup returns to Hong Kong for the first time since 2021
- Major home hope Ceci Lee Sze-wing in action on Saturday, following opening day struggles for home team
The return of world-class track cycling to Hong Kong fell flat on Friday, despite a series of captivating performances from some of the sport’s leading stars.
The two home teams in action on the opening day of the UCI Track Championships, at Hong Kong Velodrome in Tseung Kwan O, had days to forget.
Organisers, who priced tickets fairly, with prices ranging from HK$50 to HK$200 across the three days, did not reveal attendance figures for the night’s session, when Great Britain’s formidable women’s team pursuit quartet, and the lighting men’s sprint trio from Denmark were among those crowned winners.
But of the 1,500 seats available, however, only around 25 per cent were occupied. Sales for Saturday were “not very good”, a source told the Post, with roughly 50 per cent of Sunday’s 3,000 tickets, across two sessions, still available.
The Track Nations Cup, last staged behind closed doors in Hong Kong during the height of the pandemic in 2021, is an elite, three-leg, competition, attracting many of the best riders on the planet.
It is particularly important this year, with its generous offering of qualifying points for the summer Olympic Games.
In advance of the event, which was one of 17 granted ‘M’ Mark Status, local cycling boss Raymond Leung Cheong-ming said he hoped fans would “show their support to the Hong Kong team by watching the Nations Cup”.
Leung will have his fingers crossed for a rush of interest over the weekend, with main local draw, Ceci Lee Sze-wing, competing in Saturday’s Madison, and going again, in the omnium, on Sunday.
On Friday, the piercing whistles and cries from team staff, housed in the centre of the track, accounted for all the audible excitement, save for the muted cheers that greeted a dominant elimination race victory for William Perrett of Great Britain, and a roar generated by Japanese flyer Yumi Kajihara sealing victory in the equivalent women’s race, adding to the Asian Championships title she won last month.
The morning session, watched by around 100 paying fans, began in miserable fashion for Hong Kong’s two Team Sprint trios. The women were slowest of 11 teams in qualifying, while their male counterparts did not turn a wheel in anger, after being disqualified for two false starts in their qualifier.
The evening session was book ended by gold medals for Perrett, 27, and the Australian trio of Leigh Hoffman, Matthew Richardson, and Thomas Cornish, silver medallists at last year’s World Championships, winning their second successive team sprint Nations Cup.
Perrett blew away the field in his race, and on the closing two laps powered clear of lone remaining rival, Jules Hesters of Belgium.
“You have to ride efficiently in the bunch, then make sure you have the legs at the end,” Perrett said. “I kept my foot to the floor and held off Hesters … I enjoyed it.”
China beat Netherlands to bronze in the women’s team sprint. In the final, Germany could not live with formidable gold medallists Great Britain, spearheaded by 2016 Rio Olympic bronze medallist Katy Marchant, only recently returned from giving birth in June 2022, and also featuring 21-year-old individual world sprint champion Emma Finucane.
New Zealand overlapped Ireland to triumph in the women’s individual pursuit, while Japan overcame Australia for bronze.
Japan were comfortably beaten by Denmark in the men’s team sprint final, with New Zealand pipping Australia to bronze.
