Well let's see. What page in the "Cyclists Book of 101 Excuses" will I find the reason why Worlds didn't go as planned? How about excuse #102 - I just flat ran out of gas.

Even though this year has been full of stops and starts - bad weather, knee injury, bike problems - I was able to bring my game up high enough to win my first two major competitions of the year, the Alpenrose Challenge and then Masters National Track Championships. I came out of Masters Natz at a pretty high level and thought I could maintain that peak for another 4 weeks. It wasn't to be though.

Following Natz I took my rest week as planned but never really got my speed back up. I had a couple of bright moments during the following 3 weeks, but always a little off. I started my taper and run into Worlds optimistic that the speed would come once I got to England, but I then developed a little sore throat just before leaving and the 12 hour plane flight seemed to make it worse, as it moved first into my sinuses and then down to my chest. Yuchh!

The airline then somehow misplaced my bikes so I went two days with nothing to ride and had to face the possibility that they might not arrive at all.

The bikes finally showed up and I had two days to get ready for my first race - the 500 meter tt - but again the speed simply wasn't there either during training or during the event itself. I rode a 37.5 second tt, which isn't a good time for me at Hellyer, much less at a fast indoor track like the Manchester Velodrome. It was good enough for 5th, but that's all.

That was on Monday, so I now had until Thursday to get the speed up for the sprints on Thursday, and it did get a bit faster each day, but not quite enough. My qualifying time of 12.095 would have been a good time for me at Hellyer, but again I was looking for something a little faster indoors. I had gone 11.66 in Colorado missing my age group world record of 11.61 by .05 seconds. I thought that with a really hot run in Manchester, I might yet beat the record, but again, it wasn't to be.

My 12.09 was fast enough for the second seed. The fastest time was 11.79. The Match Sprints at Masters Worlds is run so that everyone makes the tournament and you have to loose two matches to finally be put out. Most of the rides are three ups, but depending on how many people are in the tournament, some folks get two ups. Seeding 2nd, I was one of those folks, getting two up rides through all the rounds to the finals.

I felt good through the first three rounds, winning all of the sprints pretty handily. The final though was a three up with the top seed, Carlos Reybaud (Argentina), and the 7th seed, Patrick Gellineau (USA), who had upset the third seed and last years' champion, Robert Gerard Louis (Canada), to make it into the finals. Pat is very smart rider and his 200 meter time of 12.45 wasn't that much slower than mine, but I felt I had to concentrate on Reybaud as he had finished 2nd last year in the sprints and had also finished 2nd in the 500 meter tt earlier in the week, so he had something to prove.

Sprinting on a 250 meter track requires some different tactics than a 333 like Hellyer or Colorado Springs, and a three race up makes it that much more complicated. It's important to try and control the pace of the race as it can be difficult to pass with the short straights, so I went to the front immediately and started my acceleration from the gun. Reybaud tried to pass me once about 1 1/2 laps into it, but I gunned it enough to keep him at bay and then coming out of turn four into the bell lap, I hit it as hard as I could go. 250 meters to go at the bell.

Going flat out, ten feet from the finish line I thought the championship was mine. Unknown to me though, was that Reybaud had come out of the lane and off my wheel in turn one, and Patrick had taken advantage of the bobble to get on my wheel. Pat said afterward he'd probably done 30 crits this year, and that road fitness was probably the biggest factor as he jumped hard out of turn four and just nipped me at the line - or as the brits say, he pipped me. I beat Pat for the 2005 National Sprint Championships and if I'd had my Colorado speed in England, he wouldn't have gotten by, but I didn't and he did, so the best rider won.

So, no gold medal, but winning the silver and getting on the podium at the World Championships was still pretty cool. We got flowers and then got to ride our bikes around the track with people cheering and clapping. Very cool!

On Saturday, LGBRC teammate, Tim Montagne, and I teamed up with Scott Butler, a very fast rider from Pennsylvania, for the Team Sprint. We had an eighteen team field, with the top four times going into the medal round. I was pretty fried, but we did a respectable time only 2.5 seconds out of first place (52.432sec vs 49.981sec), but also a second and a half out of fourth (50.949sec), so that was it for us.

All in all not a great week, but I will always remember and treasure the moments on the podium receiving my silver medal. The event itself was one of the most professionaly run races I've ever been to, and everyone involved, riders, promotors, officials, support staff, even the hotel folks were incredible. Thanks to all.

For complete results go to: http://www.cyclingmasters.com/2006.results/mon.html

Thanks for reading.

Kevin