Golds, Rainbows, Ice and Fire

I can't claim to be a massive fan of 'circular' sports. Honestly, even motocross which I really enjoy carries a little less magnetism once the field is all mixed up and I can't work out what rider is winning, or second or 15th. Likewise track racing. Team pursuit racing? Yes. Two man sprint? Easy. Points race? Aaah fageddabowdit! Madison? Nope. But I put this down to my owning the attention span of a very small gnat rather than anything else. Obviously, I can follow F1 because the order they go off the grid is usually the finishing order which is easy to work out for even a pea brain like me! ;-) Still, that's no reason not to attend a World Cup track event now is it? To decline such an invitation would be churlish. So I didn't and found myself easing my way through slippery seas of freakishly large quads and giant glutes at the recent Manchester race.



Britain won gold, rainbows seemed to be everywhere I looked, a certain Miss Pendleton provided the ice and all the riders breathed fire. Anyone who watched Saturday's race will know about Awang's splinter (stake more like) and Rouleur blogged about it here using my images of the Kiwi rider Edward Dawkins. Awang had crossed the line and collapsed around bend one and I was caught up in the melee in the finish straight.



Here's Ed giving Juan Peralta Gascon the stinkeye for (allegedly) causing the pile up.



So USA! Olympic gold medallist Jamie Staff was coaching the American team whilst keeping a beady eye on the goings on in the GB pit right next door. He could only watch as former team mate Hoy rode his rivals into the dust - or boards - to take the gold in the keirin. I snaffled one of my favouritist (my blog my language!)  portraits of recent times and came back with a small bag of bangers - that's pictures I am happy with.
Of course, I'd really like to show them here but the printed page on old papery stuff still has the last word in that respect. So look for them. They will come. Oh yes, they will come.