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TEAM SA ALL THE WAY!

(Alan Denman)

At the recent track world cup i had the dubious pleasure of being South African Team manager. This was i must state here, no where near as glamorous as it sounds. Basically if you're good enough to ride for the country and you can afford your plane ticket, your a national rider. So they obviously couldn't afford to send a manager or any staff, so due to having the Jean Spies connection, I was asked.

As it turned out I was the proud team manager of one rider! With Pete from Ingear agreeing to come up as mechanic, the management outnumbered he riders by 100%. It would still prove to be good experience for me getting everything sorted for such a big event and being able to be track centre amongst most of the best riders and coaches in the world.

My first job was to get the rider registered and pick up his number and timing chip. I was dressed in my South African kit and for some reason felt the need to put on a South African accent! Those of you who heard me attempting to mimic Jean will know that at best it can only be described as dodgy! So anyway there i was giving it my best when I heard 'Hello Alan, what you doing here?' followed by,  'and why are you dressed like that?' It was a commssaire who recognised me. Time to come clean!

Our first race was the heat of the points. Twenty riders in the race and twelve qualify. James (our rider) rolled round for a lap before the start, then as i stood on the track holding him up it felt pretty surreal! I must admit with a sold out crowd, loud music playing to get them going, riders from all over the world surrounding me, I felt strangely patriotic to South Africa! (how wrong is that) The plan for the race was for James to sit tight, not to attack and to just grab points on a couple of sprints and whatever happened not to go into the red, which at his level could be costly. With twelve going through, this should have been enough.                                  

The starters gun went and they rolled off. By the time I walked from the start line to the team managers area on the other side of the track, they had done one and a half laps. A Mexican rider had decided to attack from the off and as the riders swung off in turn, James found himself on the front, instead of swinging up the track, he decided the best tactic was to put his head down and chase him! Stuck in no mans land, unable to bridge the gap and for some reason unable to sit up, for four laps he started tieing up. Two laps to go now for the first sprint and Chris Newton attacks from the bunch. This obviously caused a massive reaction from the bunch. as the riders passed James one by one, he gasped for air and pedaled in squares, then straight out the back he went!   My bizarre patriotic moment went from me strutting around trying to look important to taking off my SA cap and skulking off in fifteen laps flat!

 

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Once I realised just what i had on my hands, I was determined he wasn't going to make the same dreadful mistake in the scratch race in two days time. This gave me that evening and all the next day to work on him. What did i decide was the best way to bond with him, get him relaxed and be able to make him underatand what he had to do? Guinness of course!

The heat was on Monday morning, although not till about half eleven, the session started at eight thirty, so insisted we met for Breakfast at seven and left the hotel at eight. It was time he had some development squad arriving three hours before the race treatment. keeping a tight reign on his timings he reached the start in the right frame of mind and was determined not to make the same mistake again.

Again there was twenty riders with twelve going through to the final. Holding him up before the start he got a last blast in his ear of what he had to do. Selfishly i just wanted to be able to stay in the managers area till the end of the race and not have to go back to our pen early if he got dropped.

He held his position well, staying in the first ten riders at all times and swinging up after a quarter lap turn. A move of four riders went and i bellowed at him not to go with it. The four lapped the field, meaning now he had to finish in the first eight to qualify. With about twenty laps to go a group of four with Chris Newton went for the lap. James looked at me, wondering what to do. I told him to stay put as i felt that he may have blown if he'd attempted to get across to them. They lapped the field and this now meant he had to finish in the first four riders across the line out of the ones that had not gained a lap. It was going to be tough. Yelling at him to move up the bunch for the final kick i was told three times by the official to move back from the track. In the sprint it was pretty confusing trying to work out which of the riders who finished in front of him had already gained a lap. We had to wait for the result to be announced. He finished seventeenth!

So that was my world cup experience over, two races and two failures! Still at least the hotel was nice!

Posted 13/11/09.