Heroes, Villains and Velodromes: Chris Hoy and Britain’s Track Cycling Revolution. Richard Moore
a real racer. And he has seen enough of them now come through the City of Edinburgh, with the club snapping up any track cyclist with a modicum of talent and plenty of ambition. Meadowbank has always proved the testing ground; the weekly track league, on a Tuesday evening, provides a showcase, or audition, for any aspiring young rider. Arguably no other track in the UK has produced such a conveyor belt of talent, or so many British medallists.
There is no question, though, about who is the best of them all. Chris Hoy is the only individual world champion – with seven individual world titles among his nine gold medals – and, of course, the only Olympic champion to have taken his first pedal strokes at Meadowbank, and to come through the ranks of ‘The City’.
Yet Annable, asked if Hoy is the most talented rider he has worked with, hesitates. ‘His head wasn’t good initially,’ he says, eventually, and in his very matter-of-fact way. Annable is talking of the 1994 national track championships at Leicester, where a pulled foot led to Hoy finishing fifth in the junior kilo. He also placed sixth in the junior points race, but it was in the sprint – Annable’s favourite – which served as a demonstration of his potential. Hoy qualified fastest, with 11.777 seconds, beating the best junior sprinter of the day, James Taylor. ‘James Taylor’s mother came over to me after that,’ recalls Annable, ‘and said, “God, you’ve got another one – who’s he?”’
Someone else who was impressed was Doug Dailey, the national coach. He was sitting in the stand, just behind Hoy’s parents. ‘I overheard him saying, “That kid looks like he’s got something about him,”’ recalls David Hoy. ‘I spoke to him later, told him I was Chris’s dad, and he repeated what he’d said. Chris was over the moon to hear that.’
He progressed to the final, to meet the experienced Taylor in a race that also saw Hoy make his first TV appearance – it was broadcast by a new satellite sports channel called Sky Sports. ‘He got to the final,’ says Annable, ‘against Taylor, and I said, “Look Chris, you may be faster, but he can stop you riding. He’ll put you against the barriers and do whatever it takes to stop you.” I told him exactly how to get out: “Don’t chicken out!” I told him. “He can’t hurt you; he can intimidate you.” But Chris was outmanoeuvred, and Taylor got the better of him, beating him in two straight rides.’
This is what Annable means with his assertion that Hoy’s ‘head wasn’t good initially’. It seems a harsh judgement on a seventeen year old. He must be surprised that Hoy became his first and only Olympic champion. ‘You have to give him his due,’ says Annable, grudgingly. ‘His single-mindedness has been phenomenal and so has his work rate. It took him a long, long time. He is now much bigger, physically, through specialized gym training, but it’s taken him years. When he made up his mind, and had the confidence to know what to do, I mean, you can’t fault him’ – much as it would seem Annable would like to! – ‘he has really done the work. But other riders have been better at knowing how to win a race. Craig MacLean, for example.’ In MacLean Annable discovered the kind of rider he liked, almost – almost! – without qualification. ‘Craig won sixteen gold medals with our club,’ he says with evident pride. ‘Chris won six,’ he adds less effusively.
If the diplomatic Hoy has a criticism of the City it is that, although expectations were high in terms of successes, support off it, in the form of coaching and guidance, left much to be desired. Hoy says he was ‘thirsty for knowledge. I knew I wasn’t doing the right training, that there were pieces of the puzzle missing. I was desperate to know what I should do, and I kept asking questions, but there weren’t many answers.’
It is also fair, however, to say that although Hoy’s progress in his early days with The City demonstrated he had talent, there was little to indicate that he would go on to become arguably the country’s most successful ever track rider. As well as his silver in the British junior sprint in 1994, he claimed two gold medals in the Scottish championships, winning the junior sprint and pursuit. Annable, typically, is dismissive. ‘The Scottish championship is a fish-n-chipper,’ he snorts, a ‘fish-n-chipper’ being one of those baffling pieces of sporting parlance – in cycling, it means inconsequential, rubbish.
October 1994 brought a significant development for the sport in the UK. The country’s first indoor velodrome was built, in Manchester, as part of the city’s planned bid for the 2000 Olympics. Costing £9 million, it proved an instant hit, not least with the City of Edinburgh Racing Club, who transferred their dominance from the traditional home of the national championships, in Leicester, to their new home in Manchester. In 1995, the first year the championships were held on the indoor track, the club won a new event, the team sprint. Hoy figured in that gold-medal winning team and also – illustrating his earlier point that he did have ‘an element of aerobic potential’ – in the silver-medal winning team pursuit team, contested over 4,000 m.
There began to be talk, already, of a ‘Manchester effect’ – namely, a raising of the standards of Britain’s track cyclists, who, finally, were able to train all year round, whatever the weather. It meant no more running for cover at the sight of rain. A Manchester Super League was established, with races held in the winter, traditionally the off-season, and with the riders representing cities, pitting Edinburgh against London, Birmingham, and Manchester.
But of all the talent that was beginning to shine from the mid-1990s, it was another Highlander – MacLean – who stood out. After Alexander, though Brydon was successful at British level, there had been no sprinters who made an impact on the international stage. At the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona no British sprinters were even selected. And four years later, at Atlanta in 1996, it was the same again: no British sprinters were deemed good enough to go. It was, explained the British coach, Doug Dailey, simply a case of ‘quality control. They just weren’t fast enough.’
Speaking in 1997, Dailey admitted that the track sprinters had for several years been treated like outcasts. But, he explained, ‘That’s about to change now. There is real progress and my feeling is there’ll be a leading light who will drag sprinting along and set the standard other sprinters have to aspire to. This boy MacLean will set the standard and he can have a dramatic effect on sprinting.’ Sprinters tend to come in little groups – the Americans and Aussies have theirs. ‘MacLean,’ Dailey added confidently, ‘can become the Guv’nor.’
Chris Hoy’s flat, Manchester, October 2007
‘I’ve never talked about it with Craig but it must have been hard for him. He was the one breaking new ground, pushing the boundaries. He did the hard work. He was like a climber, he’d make the next foothold, and I’d follow. When someone else has forged ahead it’s easy to follow because you see it’s doable. But when you’re the one taking the first step, that’s a hard thing to do.’
Chris Hoy is sitting in his flat in Manchester, talking about Craig MacLean. It is fifteen years since the two first met – or met officially. Back then, they were finding their feet, both trying their hand at mountain biking, road cycling, a bit of track riding, both in the garish red-and-yellow of the Dunedin Cycling Club, both under the enthusiastic guidance of Ray Harris.
Like Hoy, MacLean’s background was in BMX, though because they were in different age categories, their paths didn’t cross. MacLean was five years older, born in 1971, hailing from the Highland town of Grantown-on-Spey, which nestles in the picturesque Spey Valley. Again like Hoy, MacLean retired from BMX-ing – a sport with a retirement age younger than female gymnastics – in his teens. He was fifteen when he stopped, having enjoyed some success, though not as much as Hoy. ‘My age group was more competitive than Chris’s,’ says MacLean with a wry smile. ‘But he’ll contest that.’
MacLean didn’t cycle for several years after that. He got into music – he plays guitar and drums – grew his hair long and dressed in AC/DC and Metallica T-shirts with the sleeves cut off. But after starting college in Edinburgh in 1990 he began using a bike for transport.