SIMON VAN VELTHOOVEN
Cambridge 2014
Since moving back to NZ from Japan in September earlier this year all I can say is that it has been awesome. Training in this town is much ‘easier’ in regards to the facilities and the coaches available but I can tell you now – the efforts themselves are much harder and every session has all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed.
Once arriving into the country I had to crack straight into the Class 1 race that each country has to hold in order for their riders to qualify for Worlds and Olympics.
It was good to come straight from Japan with all the racing and travelling and then post a good 200m time and end up 4th in match sprints and win the Keirin the following night.
After the Commonwealth Games my coach Anthony and I had a quick debrief. Coming second in the Kilo TT without a PB time and a very mediocre performance in the Keirin we decided the bottom line was that I was not tracking upwards like the other guys in the team were. The simple answer to it was that I needed to stay put in one place and do a proper training block to get my base strength back to where it used to be in 2012. This meant I was in for a whole lot of squats and track work, which I have loved every minute of. I do find it difficult to sleep at night when I feel I have not trained hard enough to satisfy my needs to beat the best in the world. Many times the light was out at8.30pm!
Even though the best thing for me was to stay at home and train I still felt very left out when the team departed for the London World Cup. It was talked up to be the test event for most countries leading into the World Champs in February so was to have stiff competition. The last time I raced a World Cup in London was at the Olympic Test event in February 2012. I made the Keirin final which had riders not too different to the final at the Games, but more importantly afterwards I stood outside in the crisp winter air and told myself over and over that you were good enough to win a proper medal here in August, and you will smash World Champs in Melbourne in a couple of months to justify your spot in the Olympic Team.
So yeah it would have been nice to compete in a big race on a velodrome that holds so many good memories, but I just had to keep my mouth shut and look after the small things so when the time comes the big things will look after themselves.
Not all is lost because in January after the training block has finished and the tapering has been done I will race the third World Cup in Cali, Colombia where the World Champs were held in February this year where we won the Team Sprint and I placed third in the Kilo TT. Hopefully my legs will be thumping so I will produce some good results (win) and feed my desire to stand on that top dais!
The training has been going well – I am squatting over 200kg and pumping out seated kilometre time trials around 1.04 pace which is not too shabby on drops and spoke wheels. There is still a little more training to do where we need to bale all this strength up and somehow convert it to speed on the track so wish me luck!
Thank you for your ongoing support over the year. I hope you have a great Christmas and very sunny New Year.
Regards,
Simon van Velthooven