Commonwealth Games hero Ben Kersten is looking forward to qualifying for the Olympic Games in Beijing, where he hopes that he will be able to bring home another gold medal.
Brian Crawford caught up with Ben Kersten when he arrived at Dunc Gray Velodrome for Thursday afternoon NSWIS training.
Cyclingresults.net: Welcome back. We covered your reports while you were doing the Japanese style Keirin racing and they were a great read but we hadn’t heard from you for a while.
Ben Kersten: MY computer fell over and I was without access to my web page for 2 months after my “professional foul”. which was really disappointing as I had 2 more races to do and my racing continued to get better. I got a second behind Theo Bos and a second behind Mickael Bourgain as I was learning how to ride the Japanese style keirin.
CR: Did you learn much from your racing in Japan?
BK: Yeah I did it’s not often you get the chance to ride with world class athletes and I jumped ahead several years. The racing was very different and it was good to be riding big gears and the racing is very different. The tracks are much longer, they ride a lot higher on the track, and they sprint 1km after the bike pulls off. Riding on 500m tracks they attack with 2 laps to go which you wouldn’t consider doing here on our track.
CR: Does this mean we could see a few new tricks from Ben this year?
BK: Ha ha, it might.
CR: We’ve seen you competing in the Omnium recently.
BK: I had a back operation in July and the World Championships were in March and I did the Omnium as a fill in as my general form was good and I wanted to attend the World Championships to avoid being out of the loop.
CR: We know you have had some big successes with the Time Trial at International level, will we see you doing the Kilo at the World Cup?
BK: No, hopefully I’ll be selected to ride the Keirins and Team Sprint but the team hasn’t been selected as yet. If the Kilo is on the last day I might do it for old times sake, but it takes a lot out of you and I need to specialise in my other events.
CR: It was disappointing when they canned the Kilo…
BK: I was gutted when they scrapped the Kilo. I’ve trained all my life for the event and they’ve scrapped it, but it’s more fun as the training required is shorter and doesn’t involve the lactate training.
CR: It was good to get the results while it was there.
BK: Perhaps but I missed out on the one jersey I was after. It would have been a few years off
CR: There is a lot of talk about the the quality of the field expected to show up at the Sydney Round of the Track World Cup.
BK: It’s Winter in Europe and it’s only 2′c, why wouldn’t the riders be coming to Sydney?
CR: Word has it that Teams will be arriving in Sydney to train on the Dunc Gray in preparation for the World Cup as soon as the World Masters Championships are finished.
BK: If I was a team manager I would be sending a team to train in a warm climate and on such a fast velodrome as well.
CR: Why is this round so important for qualification and how do you think this will impact the quality of racing on display?
BK As the first round it was always going to tract more riders and all the riders are looking to qualify for the World Championships and Olympics
CR: Will they be looking to qualify for the Beijing Olympics?
BK: Absolutely. Every round of the World Cup will be a crowd pleaser this year as qualification will not be determined until late in the year. I’m not assured of my position in the team as there are so many riders who could be chosen.
CR: Then we have the UCI Pro Continental Teams, Drapac Porsche, South Australia.com and a possible 3rd team yet to be announced who are able to enter
BK: Yeah, with those teams we should get maximum entries
CR: Thanks for your time it was good to chat again
BK: No problem. Thanks
See more NSW cycling news at www.nsw.cycling.org.au
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