Hot Tracks, Cold Mistakes: Why Heat Training May Belong In Track Cycling

Track cycling has learned how to make velodromes faster by making them warmer. The next performance question is whether riders, coaches, staff and officials are ready for the cost.

A fast velodrome is rarely a kind room.

The heat is felt first in the track centre. Rollers turning. Turbo trainers humming. Riders trying to stay ready without getting cooked. Coaches watching numbers. Mechanics moving around bikes that have already been polished into silence. Commissaires in shirts and long trousers, expected to remain still, alert and exact while the air gets heavier around them.

Above it all, the boards look clean and quick. The air is doing what the sport wants it to do.

Warm air is thinner. Thinner air is faster. In a sport built around speed, that bargain is hard to resist.

Track cycling has lived with this for years. The London 2012 velodrome was widely reported as being held at around 28C, with the warmer air helping reduce air density and aerodynamic resistance. For timed events, records and medal rides, the logic is obvious. Make the room faster and the clock may reward you.

The bike gains something. The body pays for it.

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Performance Analysis

Sleeping High, Sprinting Low: Can Altitude Help A Track Sprinter Stay Fast?

Altitude training is already part of elite endurance cycling. Track sprint has mostly left it alone, and for good reason: the decisive systems are different. But sprint tournaments are not one isolated effort, so could live high, train low help some sprinters recover well enough to keep more of their speed, timing and judgement when the efforts begin to accumulate?

A sprinter rarely loses everything at once.

The morning ride can look clean. The bike comes up to speed, the line is held, the gear turns, the final 100 metres arrive with the violence the coach expected. Nothing in it says the same rider will look different later in the day.

Then the event starts to spend them.

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