Meet the Stars
Craig MacLean
Craig is a Scottish track cyclist who has represented Great Britain at two Olympic Games, winning a silver medal in the Team Sprint at the 2000 Olympics. MacLean also won a bronze medal for Scotland in the Team Sprint at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, followed by a gold medal in the event at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Australia. In his heyday, Craig was considered one the best lead-out men in the world and can power his bike at speeds of over 40mph, over a distance of 250m from a standing start.
Craig has now retired from professional cycling and currently competes as a tandem pilot with top Paralympic athletes. He is also a regular star coach at Sprint School, where he passes on his world class experience to the young riders.
Ed Clancy
Ed, an Olympic gold medalist and four time world champion, is a pivotal member of the highly successful Great British cycling team. On the track he competes in the Team Pursuit and as an individual in the new Olympic discipline, the Omnium (a multi race event). Ed is a World, Olympic and European Champion on the track and also rides for the domestic road team Rapha-Condor-Sharp.
Ed got into cycling when his father bought him his first bike when he was 5 years old. At 15 he was spotted whilst attending a British Cycling event and was part of the first intake into the British Cycling Academy which included other big names such as Mark Cavendish and Geraint Thomas.
Ed has a unique blend of pure speed and endurance and is ‘man one’ in the Team Pursuit – his job is to get the team to their average speed as quickly as possible. He is unique and unrivalled in the World and a lot of the recent success of the team is put down to the start he gives them. Regarded as one of the fastest track sprinters on the planet, Ed is set to mount a serious medal challenge at the London Olympics in 2012.
Ed has attended a number of Sprint Schools over the years and is a firm favourite with the kids thanks to his sense of humour and willingness to take them all on in the games!
Jamie Staff
A World and Olympic champion, Jamie has also won numerous other medals at World Championships, World Cups and at the Commonwealth Games.
Jamie was undoubtedly one of the cycling stories of 2002. A BMX rider who had won just about everything from the World Championships downwards, he decided at the end of 2001 that he wanted to win an Olympic medal which meant turning his attention to the track as BMX at that time was not an Olympic sport. He qualified for the GB Cycling Team at the first attempt and immediately started to produce some stunning performances.
At the Commonwealth Games in 2002, Jamie was a crowd-pleasing member of the silver medal winning England Team Sprint trio, an impressive semi-finalist in the sprint (during which he broke the national 200m record) and the winner of a bronze in the Kilo, behind GB team-mates Chris Hoy and Jason Queally.
However, he surpassed all expectations when he helped GB to win a gold medal in the Team Sprint at the 2002 world Track Championships in Copenhagen, less than a year after taking up track racing. Despite not winning a medal at Athens in 2004, he took gold in the keirin and bronze in the team sprint at the World Championships in Melbourne. He returned to the city in 2006 to win silver in the team sprint at the Commonwealth Games.
Jamie has now retired from racing and has turned his attention to coaching. He attended many Sprint Schools as a guest coach before he moved to the USA in 2010 to coach their national cycling team.
David Daniell
David’s career in cycling started as a result of British Cycling visiting his school to run some cycling tests during a games lesson. Although at the time David didn’t own a bike, he shone and was asked back to do some further trials from which he was offered a place on British Cycling’s Talent Team.
He made his mark on the national scene winning the British Junior 500m time trial as a virtual unknown, catapulting him into the attention of the British Cycling Sprint Coaches. Before long he found himself representing Britain at Junior International level where he took Gold in the 2005 European Championships in the Kilo and Team Sprint, and then duplicating this victory in the Team Sprint at the World Championships.
In just over two years David had gone from non-cyclist to World Champion, a testament to his determination and outstanding ability. David has gone on to represent Great Britain at senior level at the World Championships and World Cup events, the highlight being a win in the World Cup Kilo at Manchester in November 2008, and silver at the 2010 Commonwealth games, demonstrating the potential of this young rider on the world stage. In 2011 he won a silver medal in all three sprint events at the National Track Championships, coming second only to Sir Chris Hoy.
David has appeared at a number of Sprint Schools and always brings a laid back attitude and plenty of enthusiasm!
Victoria Pendleton
Olympic and World Champion Victoria Pendleton began her cycling career on the grass track at the age of 9, a discipline in which her father Max was national champion. She was spotted by the GB team at the age of 13, but chose to focus on her studies and gained her degree in Sport and Exercise Science at Northumbria University. Being a full-time student didn’t stop Victoria wanting to compete, and she won four medals in the National Track Championships in 2001, before turning to Track sprinting full time in 2002.
In 2005, Victoria won her first World Championship title, taking Gold in the Sprint. She was second in 2006, but regained the title in 2007 and successfully defended it in 2008 and 2009.
2007 was a great year for Victoria, seeing her win no less than three World Championship medals, she added the Team Sprint and Keirin titles to her Sprint gold. This achievement saw her be crowned as The Times Sportswoman of the Year as well as the Sports Journalists of Great Britain’s Sportswoman of the Year.
However, 2008 was even more successful for Victoria as she brought home Sprint Gold from the Beijing Olympics, an achievement recognised by an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List. Her competitive spirit and love of the sport meant that, despite little rest since the Olympics she was back in action at the 2009 World Championships, successfully winning her fourth sprint title, silver in the Team Sprint and her first ever medal , a bronze, in the 500m Time Trial.
In 2010, Victoria achieved an astonishing fourth consecutive individual sprint title at the World Championships and rounded off the event in Denmark with silver in the keirin. Her 26th and 27th British national titles followed last September and the 30 year olds 2010/11 World Cup campaign also proved successful with seven medals in all, two of them gold, achieved in Melbourne and Cali.
Becky James
As a mountain biker in her childhood, Becky made the switch to track sprinting when she was 15 and with the help of the Welsh Talent Team and a couple of years of hard work she made it on to British Cycling’s Olympic Development Programme a year early. Now Becky is one of GB Cycling’s brightest sprint cycling talents and at the age of 19 is already ranked in the top 10 in the world for the Women’s Sprint and 500m Time Trial..
In 2010 at the age of 18, Becky shone, winning 2 medals at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi including a silver in the women’s sprint where she was beaten by the tightest of margins by former Olympic Gold medallist and current World Sprint Champion Anna Meares of Australia.
The 2010/11 track cycling season saw Becky break into the World Top 10 for female sprinters. The highlight of this season being a World Cup bronze medal in the Keirin in Beijing, and 2 personal bests in the Individual Sprint and the 500m Time Trial at the end of season World Championships in Apeldoorn, Holland.
Becky has attended several Sprint Schools in the past and the girls always love having a female hero to look up to!
