The Athens Olympics of 2004 hold a special significance for Scottish Cycling. Although Chris Hoy’s recent successes in Beijing have gained him increased media attention and propelled him to world fame, he still emphasises his gold in the kilo at the Athens Games as the special one, his first Olympic gold.

This event was also meaningful for another individual. Avidly glued to the successes of Hoy and the British Cycling team was a 12-year-old sports enthusiast from Edinburgh. Gripped by the action and immediately hooked on the thrills of track cycling, he decided to visit his local track and give it his best shot. As Chris Hoy’s story was reaching a pinnacle, the first chapter of the Callum Skinner story began.

Four years on, both Edinburgh-born track cyclists have arguably had the best year of their respective sporting careers to date. While Hoy was under the spotlight in Beijing, flying around the Laoshan Velodrome towards a record three gold medals, Skinner was making his own mark on the track cycling scene closer to home, breaking a British and two Scottish records on his way.

It was fitting then, that Hoy presented Skinner with the inaugural Chris Hoy Trophy last month, recognising the teenagers promising talent on the track.

Sitting down for a coffee in Edinburgh with In The Winning Zone, Skinner revealed the main plot of his track cycling story, his thoughts on a successful year on the track, his future aspirations and why Scotland must act sooner rather than later in improving facilities for track cyclists.

Although he currently spends almost every waking minute concentrating on cycling, Skinner has tried his hand at a number of sports. From archery to fencing, football to badminton, “I’ve tried just about everything” he ponders.

He notes rugby as his first competitive sport, which he played for two years from the age of 12, during which he managed to reach the selection trials for Edinburgh. It was however his interest in cycling which took over from rugby.

Admittedly a keen cyclist, Skinner conveys his desire to constantly better himself when mentioning the reasons why he chose sprint cycling

“It seemed like target-based cycling, as in, compared to cycling a 10 mile time trail where it takes a couple of hours to find out whether you’ve got a pb or not. With track cycling, especially sprint, after 12 seconds you’ll find out if you’ve got a pb or not. It is that constant target and improvement that really attracted me to it.”

For his first two years on the track, Skinner was simply learning the ropes and getting used to the nature of sprint cycling. In mentioning his introduction to competitive cycling, Skinner hails the influence Hoy had on him as an up-and-coming star.

“Even when I was just getting to grips with track cycling in my first two years in the sport, Chris would come down to the track once or twice a year. To be connected with someone who was the pinnacle of world cycling, even at grassroots level was absolutely phenomenal.”

More recently, Skinner has been setting goals and reaching them, reaching targets and improving all the time.

In 2007, having proved his talents on the track, Skinner was accepted onto the Scottish Cycling Talent Team. This gave the teenager the advantage of using the Scottish Institute of spot for the gym and physiotherapy treatment alongside the introduction of his first track cycling coach, former Scottish Commonwealth cyclist, Marco Librizzi.

Skinner hails Librizzi as “the biggest benefit of being in the talent team” and believes that his coach has helped make his goals more realistic, and essentially improved him as a sprint cyclist over that last year.

His results are glaring evidence of this improvement. This year, Skinner celebrated his 16th birthday by breaking the British 200m record, having already broken the Scottish 200m and 500m records. He is modest in his recent successes; in fact he seems to have almost surprised himself with his achievements.

“When I sat down with Marco at the beginning of the year setting targets I thought ‘well, I’ll say that but there’s no way I’ll reach them’ but it turns out I have and it feels phenomenal to have reached those targets”

Although he is technically in off-season, Skinners determination to go up in the cycling world is evident from his training schedule. “It almost gets stupid over the winter,” he notes, “you can be as fatigued as you want its just about digging yourself deeper and deeper.”

Skinner’s current schedule allows him only one day off every two weeks. Every day he is either in the gym, doing turbo or roller sessions, or out doing a road ride, digging deeper and deeper, challenging himself all the time.

However, Skinner is not gaining the same training as his rivals south of the border. While his English and Welsh counterparts race around a fully lit, always accessible, never rained-off indoor velodrome, Skinner is forced to dodge the traffic and practice out on the road.

A salient point is made when Skinner reveals the effect this lack of facilities has on his training regime: “The two records I broke this year I can only do for half a year in Scotland”. He calls the track cycling facilities in this country “dismal”, which by all accounts is an understatement.

He has a laugh to himself while recalling visits with friend, rival and training partner Kevin Stewart, to Portobello promenade, another winter training location for Scotland’s young cycling talent. “Old ladies with dogs hit us with sticks!” He laughs. He also tells a story of his training partner almost being hit by a van while flying along the promenade: “The velodrome is a traffic free environment for a reason.”

Somehow, through either flying to Cardiff or driving to Manchester to access world-class training facilities, Skinner managed to overcome his rivals who have access to an indoor velodrome at all times. It poses the question, what could our promising young cycling talent do in the future, if they had access to an indoor training facility year-round?

By no means will the Edinburgh teenager let the lack of adequate training facilities faze him. Indeed, you get the idea that he would, and will, train anywhere if it would improve his cycling.

Currently, Skinner is not working towards national championships or a specific race but a lab test in two weeks time. Along with all the other British talent at his age group, Skinner will be proving his worth on the bike in an attempt to be accepted onto the Olympic Development Program.

“It is almost a gateway into the British Cycling team.” Skinner comments, “the time for getting onto the British team is when you’re 16 or 17 and if you miss that slot its much more difficult to get on later on.”

His promising results this year on the track may put him in a strong position for a place on the programme, but he knows what will be required of him on the day. “I just need to go and basically knock my pan in and see how I get on.”

The Olympic Development Programme would be a significant stepping-stone towards Skinner’s ultimate goals. For the London Olympics he will be 20 years old and when Glasgow 2014 comes around he will be 22.

“The most realistic long-term goal is probably Glasgow 2014. But I’m not ruling out Delhi of London, they’re not as likely as Glasgow but they’re still goals. If Jason Kenny can get to Beijing at 20 then why cant I get to London at 20 or Delhi at 18?”

By the time Skinner’s pinnacle comes around, it is almost certain that in the same way he was inspired by Hoy, he will inspire the next generation of Scottish Cyclists to follow in his footsteps and reach for the highest echelons of track cycling.

IC
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