The start of March saw our cycling athletes take to the track at the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome of Wales in Newport to compete at the 2024 BUCS Track Cycling Championships. The University of Nottingham Cycling Club headed to the event hoping to make their mark across the weekend of competition.
These championships would see returning cyclists and sport scholars pulling on the #GreenandGold, as well as a host of track members making their debuts at a BUCS Track Championship. These first timers included sport scholar El King who also cycles for the UCI Women's Continental Team - Lifeplus Wahoo. El is in her first year at UoN studying full time whilst racing all over Europe in the professional peloton against the world best riders. Using this experience King bested the field in the Women's Points race to claim a majestic gold, whilst also taking home a silver in the Women's Elimination race. Racing alongside her in the Elimination race would be University of Nottingham teammate Tilly Gurney who crossed the line in third to join King on the podium for a well deserved bronze.
However, not to be outdone, Gurney would also bring home a gold medal of her own by delivering a fantastic performance in the Women's Individual Pursuit to win one of Nottingham's four gold medals at the championships. This tally included Gurney and King achieving a hat-trick of gold's by winning the Women's Team Pursuit alongside teammates Gaby Homer and Lotty Dawson, whilst the two also teamed with Lizzie Broughton to also win a silver in the Women's Team Sprint.
Our Women's Team Pursuit result was also matched by our male cyclists of Matt Dennis, Gabriel Taylor, Tim Line, and George Cottrell, who finished atop the rest of the pack to showcase the University of Nottingham's quality in the discipline. This marked the first time since 2019 tha University of Nottingham Cycling Club have taken the gold medal in both team pursuit events, whilst the women's squad breaking their BUCS record in the final against Loughborough University. Tilly Gurney spoke on this achievement by commenting that "it was a brilliant weekend for the whole team, and was especially great to win both the men’s and women’s Team Pursuit titles, breaking the women’s record which we’ve held since 2019. Our strength in depth is clear, with podiums achieved across the board. A massive thanks goes to our coach Tom Haines, without his guidance and enthusiasm we couldn’t have achieved what we did."
Our male athletes would also contribute to Nottingham's medal haul by picking up second place finishes in the sprints with Bálint Csengői claiming silver in the Men's Sprint, whilst also teaming with Josh Hoad and Barney Pickford to win silver in the Men's Team Sprint. The Men's Elimination rounded out Nottingham's success with a fantastic silver for Matt Dennis, taking the overall tally for the weekend to an incredible 10 medals.
University of Nottingham Head Coach Tom Haines reflected on the success by saying "It was a super weekend with every squad member delivering high quality and highly skilled performances reflecting their hard work and dedication. I am immensely proud of our achievement of winning so many races."
We would like to congratulate everyone who represented the University of Nottingham at the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome of Wales for the BUCS Championship weekend.
You can find all the results from the championships by visiting the BUCS website. You can also keep up to date with our University of Nottingham Cycling Club by following them on social media.
This year, the University of Nottingham Cycling Club are being supported by Lime, the world’s largest shared electric vehicle company who are on a mission to build a future where transportation is shared, affordable and carbon-free.
Top photograph courtesy of Still Sports Photography.
To find out more about our Performance Cycling programme, please
click here. To learn more about sport scholarships at the University of Nottingham, please
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Posted on Friday 8th March 2024