History and Culture

Matthew Richardson is in Japan. So is Harrie Lavreysen. Joe Truman has gone back, and on the women's side Ellesse Andrews, Hetty van de Wouw and Mathilde Gros have joined them. Put those six names together and the instinct is to read the story the way modern track cycling usually invites it to be read: medals, titles, speed, hierarchy, the familiar order of who has won what and who is expected to win next.

Hong Kong is not a soft host city. It does not unfold slowly, and it does not ask to be admired from a distance. It moves. That is part of why it suits a World Cup so well. From 17 to 19 April, the 2026 UCI Track World Cup lands at Hong Kong Velodrome in Tseung Kwan O, with the second round of the series returning to one of track cycling's most proven modern venues. The velodrome sits at 105-107 Po Hong Road, has a 250m Siberian pine track, and belongs to a city that has already staged the 2017 Track World Championships, multiple World Cups and Nations Cup rounds.

Erika Salumae was not simply a great sprinter who happened to live through history. She was a champion whose victories were asked to carry more than speed alone: first the weight of a system, then the weight of a country returning to itself.Barcelona, 31 July 1992. Velodrom d'Horta. Erika Salumae lost the first ride of the Olympic sprint final to Annett Neumann, then took the next two and defended her title. On one level, that was the race. On another, it was far more than that. Estonia, newly returned to the Olympic map under its own flag, had its first champion of the restored era. The medal ceremony even contained its own small absurdity, the Estonian flag briefly hung upside down before being corrected. Salumae's reaction was calm, dry, almost dismissive. They would get it right next time.

British track cycling spent two decades proving it could build winners. It also spent years being forced to answer a harder question: what kind of place was it to belong to? This is the story of a programme that built a dynasty, then had to confront what that dynasty had concealed, and now appears to be trying to prove that excellence does not need to come wrapped in fear.

It is a small memory, the sort that would barely register in another sport.

From 27 to 31 August 1997, the UCI Track Cycling World Championships were held at the newly opened Perth SpeedDome, then known as the Perth Superdrome. On the evening of 31 August, as racing concluded in Perth, news began to break across the world that Diana, Princess of Wales had died in a car crash in Paris. Within hours, the global atmosphere shifted.

When the UCI Track Cycling World Cup first came into being in 1993, it was a clear statement of intent - to professionalise, globalise and give structure to international track racing. What followed over nearly three decades was one of the most important recurring competitions in the sport.

There are careers measured in medals, there are careers measured in moments. And then there are careers measured in years, Helena Casas Roige belongs firmly in the third category. She has not won a world title. She has not stood on an Olympic podium. Her name is not printed in rainbow bands across the history of women’s sprinting. But for nearly twenty years she has been present, competitive and, most unusually of all, improving.

Koichi Nakano did not borrow the world sprint title for a season. He took hold of it and held it for a decade. In doing so, he forced international track cycling to recognise the depth, discipline and authority of the Japanese racing world that had made him. San Cristobal, 1977, was the moment the sport had to stop being polite about Japan. Nakano won the professional sprint title there in an all-Japanese final against Yoshikazu Sugata, with the defending champion John Nicholson left in bronze.

As the UCI Track Cycling World Cup rolls into Western Australia, visiting teams, media and fans will discover that Perth is far more than a host city. Isolated geographically but confident culturally, Perth blends elite sport, outdoor lifestyle and vast natural space in a way few global cities can. For many European teams, the journey is long. But once you arrive, the rhythm of the city quickly makes sense.

As the opening round of the upcoming UCI Track Cycling World Cup approaches, attention turns to one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most established high-performance venues: Midvale Velodrome, more widely known as the Perth SpeedDome. Located in Perth’s eastern suburbs in Western Australia, the SpeedDome has long been the beating heart of elite track cycling in the region. While it may not carry the architectural drama of some newer European arenas, it remains a serious racing venue: fast, intimate, and technically demanding.

If you come from road cycling, the rainbow bands are sacred. Former world champions carry them for life: thin horizontal stripes on the sleeves and collar, a quiet signal of pedigree that needs no explanation.

When Roger Kluge crossed the line to win the men's Madison at the 2026 European Championships with Moritz Augenstein, the moment landed with extra weight. It came on Kluge's 40th birthday. Not a farewell lap. Not a ceremonial ride. A full-blooded championship win at the sharp end of elite European track racing.