Queally Return Marks Successful Transfer

 

by Rebecca Roberts & James Skitt - 26.03.10

Fours years after his last appearance at a World Championships, 40 year old Jason Queally comes out of retirement as part of the Team Pursuit quartet for the British Cycling team in Copenhagen tonight (Friday).

Even more remarkably, his comeback also sees the former Olympic Gold medallist return in an endurance event, having successfully transferred from his previous vocation as a sprinter.

After missing out on a place in the British team for Beijing by just a tenth of a second, Queally announced his retirement in 2008 and volunteered to become a pilot rider with the Para cycling team ahead of the London Olympic Games in 2012.

However, having impressed the coaches with his results in training, he proved age hasn’t impacted on his ability to compete at the highest level and his return has been widely welcomed by members of the British Cycling team.

One of the early products of the British Cycling programme, Queally won gold in Sydney ten years ago, a result which provided a springboard for Britain’s recent domination of the sport. But his comeback, and in particularly his decision to reinvent himself as an endurance cyclist, had been the result of hard work and physiological testing which proved his ability to transfer disciplines.

English Institute of Sport (EIS) Physiologist (working with British Cycling) Esme Taylor, explains : “From a physiological perspective, in transferring to any event we would firstly look at the demands of an event and relate that back to an athletes’ own physiology.”

“For any sprint cyclist moving to an endurance discipline the main focus is on aerobic capacity. Jason (Queally) can already produce power from his experience as a kilo rider and in the team pursuit riders would be putting out around 600-650 watts when they’re out in the front and then quickly recover whilst they move behind the other riders.

“Recovering in time is a key issue which he’ll want to focus on, as with any of the pursuit riders. The pursuit athletes are working at around 75% aerobic and 25% anaerobic.”

Queally told britishcycling.org: “It’s been tough learning the ropes in the team pursuit. I had done a bit of Team Pursuit training in August/September 2009 and was going quite well there. That was a bit shocking in all honesty. I had never been that good on the technical side of things, even in the Team Sprint but that is getting better all the time.”

Time will tell whether speculation of Queally competing at the London 2012 Olympics comes to fruition, but for now all eyes are on Copenhagen, where the Team Pursuit are due in action at 2050 GMT.

For updates and coverage of the World Championships check out the BBC website here or the British Cycling website here

Photography © Getty Images