Jamie Staff - Russia UCI Track World Cup

The GB team took an important and convincing win in the Team Sprint (aka Olympic sprint) on the first day of the 3rd round of the Track World Cup in Moscow today. A new line-up of Jamie Staff, Jason Queally and Chris Hoy qualified fastest in 1.00.15 on the 333m Moscow track. They then drew Australia in the final and proceeded to produce a sub minute ride as they destroyed the probable Aussie Commonwealth Games team of Sean Eady, Ryan Bailey and Ben Kersten.

Jamie Staff is of course headline news in cycling this year as a BMX rider who has taken to the Track like a duck to water. His awesome power and acceleration have been evident from the moment he first got on a Track bike. Team Manager Heiko Salzwedel was clearly excited by the potential of the Staff, Queally, Hoy line-up when we spoke to him after the event: "Jamie is sensational. He gave the team an awesome start before handing over to Olympic Kilo champion Jason Queally. Chris Hoy then drove it home with a quick final lap. Though Hoy will obviously be riding for Scotland, it will have given the riders an important psychological advantage over the Australians before the Commonwealth Games."

With two national records set and a truly world class performance yesterday by the Team Sprint Trio of Jamie Staff, Jason Queally and Chris Hoy, this world Cup has already provided plenty of good news for the GB team. Tomorrow sees Jamie Staff tackling only his second Kilo, but it should be an interesting ride after his blistering one minute four seconds ride in Mexico. Still racing BMX virtually full-time, Jamie manages to transfer his fitness and skills to the Track with amazing ease. Expect another fine performance from him and perhaps, on the fast Moscow track, a personal best. We’ll let you know how he gets on tomorrow (Sunday) evening.

In the Men’s Sprint, Jamie Staff was a non-starter after a nightmare evening on Friday. As a member of the winning Team Sprint trio he was selected for medical control (i.e. dope test) and left the stadium late with a race official acting as his driver. Unfortunately the pair became lost and didn’t get back to the hotel until 2.30am.

STAFF’S INCREDIBLE KILO -- DAY 3

The third and final day of the Moscow Track World Cup saw yet another stand-out performance by a GB sprinter, as Jamie Staff won the bronze medal in a high quality kilo competition with a time of 1m 02.532s. This is the fourth fastest Kilo ever by a British rider and less than a second slower than Jason Queally’s epic Olympic gold winning ride two years ago.

The facts behind Jamie’s performance are scarcely credible. A professional BMX rider for the past decade, Jamie has, in the last six months, turned his attention to Track racing with the ultimate aim of winning a medal at the next Olympics.

Earlier this year he recorded the necessary qualifying times to join the GB cycling Team. However, his commitments to his BMX sponsors are such that he has actually spent relatively little time on the Track up to now. He rode his first Kilo (100 metre time Trial) a few weeks ago in the Mexico round of the World Cup and recorded an impressive time of one minute four seconds. Since then he has been back riding BMX and he flew direct from the USA to join the GB Track team in Moscow. To improve his Mexico time by some two seconds is a pretty special performance in the circumstances.

National Track Sprint Coach Iain Dyer explained how he’s been working with Staff in the last few weeks and put the ride into some perspective:

"Basically he’s been emailing me his training programme and we’ve been advising him on some specific training so increase his aerobic capacity so that he’s stronger towards the end of the Kilo. But he’s hardly been on a Track since Mexico, let alone trained on tri-bars. Jamie’s a pretty instinctive athlete and he is clearly still learning, but this is still a very large jump in performance. The conditions were good, the temperature was about 27 degrees, but he didn’t use overshoes and a couple of other things which could make him go faster. It was a pretty awesome ride."

Kilo Result

1 S Lausberg (Ger) 1.01.751
2 A. Vynokurov (Ukr) 1.02.447
3 J. Staff (GB) 1.02.532

For the record, here are the four fastest Kilos ever ridden by GB qualified riders:
1 Jason Queally, Sydney, Olympics 2000 1m 01.609s
2 Jason Queally, Manchester, world Championships 2000 1m 02.45s
3 Chris Hoy, Columbia, World Cup 2001 1m 02.499s
4 Jamie Staff, Moscow, World Cup 2002 1m 02.532s