Romero 'shocked' by Olympic changes
Rebecca Romero of Great Britain poses with her gold medal after winning the women's individual pursuit track cycling final at the Beijing Olympics in August 2008. (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
British Olympic champion Rebecca Romero has hit out at "ludicrous" plans to change the track cycling programme which would mean she could not defend her title at the 2012 Games in London.
Romero won Olympic individual pursuit gold in Beijing last year but her event is in danger of disappearing from the Olympic programme as part of a plan to ensure male and female cyclists compete in the same number of events.
There are presently seven track events for men and three for women.
But under plans drawn up by cycling's world governing body, the UCI, the men's and women's individual pursuits, men's and women's points race and the men's Madison would disappear from the Olympic programme.
If these are approved by Olympic chiefs in December, both Romero - a rowing silver medallist at the 2004 Athens Games - and Britain's Bradley Wiggins would not have individual titles to defend in London.
"I'm all in favour of making it fairer between males and females, but I just think these proposed changes are ludicrous and could potentially destroy track cycling," Romero said Wednesday.
The 29-year-old added: "I think we should move towards equality between males and females in the medals available, but I just think this isn't equality in terms of sprint and endurance riders."
Romero is now planning to switch to the time trial in a bid to have an individual event she can take part in at the London Games.
"I'm going to have to start again in an event that I haven't competed in before and be an unknown again," she said. "It'll be difficult, but I know that I've done it before and you've just got to work with it, that's life."
© 2009 AFP
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User Comments
There are 6 comments on this post
Showing 1 - 6 of 6 comments
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Dan Gerous
Posted Wed 28 Oct, 6:07 pm UTC Flag as inappropriate
Aren't track the least popular and least practiced disciplines in cycling? Yet there are 78 different track events that most can't even differentiate... and only one XC, one road and one TT event, sports that people actually know, do and like. I'M all for cycling but I would gladly accept trading a few of the track events for, say, cyclocross, marathon xc, xc team relay, TTT...
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champs
Posted Wed 28 Oct, 9:30 pm UTC Flag as inappropriate
Don't run too far with that rationale. Nobody really knows or cares about the different ways one can swim or dive, and if we are weighing events by the number of practitioners in a discipline, then we can just throw out the Winter Olympics altogether.
The velodrome is a purpose-built facility so they can compete when they please, unlike the road race or time trial.
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Vegeeta
Posted Wed 28 Oct, 9:44 pm UTC Flag as inappropriate
Oh you mean this new velodrome that's being built to be as steep as possible? Terriffically useful once the games have been and gone in that nobody else will be able to ride the bloody thing!
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robthehungrymonkey
Posted Thu 29 Oct, 9:04 am UTC Flag as inappropriate
TBH, i'm not a massive fan of track cycling, but I think the individual pursuit is the best track event.
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barbej
Posted Thu 29 Oct, 9:45 am UTC Flag as inappropriate
I would agree that the Individual pursuit is the best track event to watch. Problem I see is that road racing, TT's etc have a lot of well know public races to compete in. Some of the track events really only get a public airing at the Olympics so would die without it. Also at the Olympics you have built a track at great expense so you may as well use it.
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Dgh
Posted Thu 29 Oct, 9:53 am UTC Flag as inappropriate
Olympic games should be pinnacle of sporting achievement. In men's road events, it's not. There's therefore a good argument for getting rid of (at least men's) road events, and concentrating on track, mtb (including DH & 4X) and BMX.
There's no sensible argument against women having the same number of events as men, but eliminating events with tradition & replacing them with the omnium is daft. The omnium isn't exactly easy to understand. If we're gonna lose track events, why not the madison & (possibly) team sprint?
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