Ian Steel – Part One: Peace Race WInner (3)

During the entire history of the Peace Race from 1948 to 1989 there were few Western winners, and no English speaker ever won – except one that is, in 1952: Ian Steel of Scotland.

The story that the East European propaganda machine circulated after that edition of the Peace Race, 60 years ago, was that the “Westerner” winner Steel had been approached by his country’s intelligence agency before he travelled to the race and was asked to; ‘keep his eyes open’ whilst behind the Iron Curtain – to spy, in other words.

The rider declined and received a telegram from his employer on the day he won, firing him from his job. All nonsense, of course.

John Paul – World Junior Champion (0)

Scotland doesn’t get too many World Cycling Champions-so when John Paul won the World Junior Sprint Championship, it was something special. ‘Juniors?’ I hear you say…

The team pursuit in the Junior Worlds was won by Australia in a time of 4:02 and the man Paul beat in the sprint semis, Max Niederlag of Germany did 9.899 in qualifying. Those are seriously quick times.

Jimmy Rae – National Tour Winner (6)

‘I cycled from my house in the West End of Glasgow to Larkhall, that would be around 30 miles, rode a 140 mile road race – it went away down over Beattock – won it, then cycled home – so that was around 200 miles for the day.’

Things were different in Jimmy Rae’s day.

VeloVeritas took a run up to Crieff Hydro to interview one of the very few Scots to have won national tours – Mr. James Rae.

Ours neat list of questions went out of the window and we decided it would be best to let Jimmy off the leash, year by year, popping in questions where we could…

“The Autobiography” by Chris Hoy (0)

As the first Briton to win 3 Olympic golds at the same Games since 1908, Scotland’s Chris Hoy has become a beacon for British sporting achievement.

This autobiography charts his life from 7-year-old BMX fanatic, supported by a devoted dad and local cycling club, through paralysing self-doubt and a major career overhaul, to the sport’s holy grail.

Chris Hoy – Performances and Plans (0)

We’ve been stalking him since Beijing; and at last, we’ve cracked him – Chris Hoy, Olympic gold medallist in the team sprint, keirin and individual sprint.

We’ve heard that he now retains Max Clifford, “PR guru to the stars,” as his agent, so we decided we’d better check out the financial aspect of the interview, first.

Craig MacLean – Where to go from here? (1)

Nine golds and two silvers. That’s what Team GB took away from the Manchester World Track Championships, back in April. A repeat performance in Beijing is entirely possible. How does British Cycling do it ?

One of the reasons is that their selection criteria is ruthless; past glory counts for nothing. The 2000 Olympic kilometre champion, Jason Queally was interviewed in ‘The Guardian’ newspaper recently and spoke of his shock and disappointment at not making the cut, despite riding faster in the team sprint than he’s ever done before – but it wasn’t fast enough for the selectors.

Another GB stalwart – with nine world championship medals, not to mention Olympic and Commonwealth Games precious metals – but who will not be on the plane to Beijing either, is our very own Craig Maclean.

Chris Hoy-Scotland’s Champion of Champions! (0)

He’s won the World Kilometre Championship four times, the World Team Sprint Championship twice, the World Keirin Championship twice, and now he’s completed an unequalled sprinters’ “quadruple” by winning the World Individual Sprint Championship…Oh – and he’s the reigning Olympic Kilometre Champion as well!

He’s Scotland’s Chris Hoy, and after we’d told him how proud we are of him, he took time to answer our questions.

Chris Hoy-The Next Olympic Keirin Champ? (0)

You’re the Olympic kilometre champion, but the ‘powers that be’ decide to remove the event from the programme at the next Olympics-what do you do? If you’re Chris Hoy, you go out and transform yourself into the best keirin rider in the world!

“The Flying Scotsman” by Graeme Obree-Putting the Record Straight (0)

Let me first say this is firstly a review of the Graeme Obree autobiography, the book – not the film – “The Flying Scotsman”, and also my version of the events at the world cycling championships in Sicily in 1994.

I was the Great Britain team mechanic for those championships, but Mr. Obree didn’t remember to mention this fact in his book. You could call this the bitter out-pouring of a man scorned, but rather it’s just my memory of what happened.

Norrie Drummond – A Hard Man in Belgium (0)

It’s just under two weeks now until the 2007 European season starts with the GP d’Ouverture La Marseillaise in the south of France on February 6th. The first major tests come a few weeks later though, on the first weekend in March, far from the Mediterranean, to the north, in Flanders.

Het Volk and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne are true classics in all but UCI category, albeit shorter than the Tour of Flanders with which they share many kilometres of parcours.

John Kennedy – Helping Simpson in Le Tour (1)

July 1960, the GB Tour de France team hotel somewhere in France. Britain’s white hope for Tour de France glory, the late, great Tom Simpson is discussing the events of the day with team mate, Brian Robinson.

Simpson had punctured during the stage and one of his GB team domestiques had brought him back up to the bunch; “I’ll tell you what, Brian – that Kennedy is strong, he was riding like ten men today when we were coming back from that puncture.”

Chris Hoy – Super Champion (0)

Concluding our series of interviews with Scottish medalists at the British Track Championships we have pleasure in bringing you the words of World Kilometre Champion, Chris Hoy.

Craig MacLean – World Championship Silver Medallist (0)

It’s been another successful British track championship for the Scottish contingent with two of the blue riband events coming north of the border, the Kilometer to World Champion Chris Hoy and the Sprint to World’s Silver Medalist Craig MacLean.

In addition, Ross Edgar, Kate Cullen and Evan Oliphant all “medalled” – as the Americans would say. VeloVeritas spoke to Craig MacLean a few days after his win.