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Jonny Wale (Walpole 09) Track Cycling

22 November 2017

Jonny-Wale-Track-Cycling

Jonny Wale (Walpole 09) came 4th in the TISSOT UCI Track Cycling World Cup Round 2, at Manchester Velodrome on 10 November, with his team coming 7th in the Team Pursuit.
This is the latest in excellent results for Jonny, who has ambitions to ride for Scotland at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Jonny is one of four individuals who make up Team KGF. Team KGF are a fresh British UCI Trade Track Team based in Derby, formed of Dan Bigham, Charlie Tanfield, Jonny Wale and Jacob Tipper.

The team caused a shock upset at this year’s HSBC UK British National Track Cycling Championship as they achieved the monumental result of three golds and a silver, alongside breaking the competition record for the 4km Team Pursuit with 4.04.644. This would have placed the amateur team in the top 10 of the 2016 Rio Olympics. Dan Bigham and Charlie Tanfield took the top spots in the 4km Individual Pursuit, with Dan becoming National Champion with a 4:22.023 and Charlie gaining Silver with 4:22.795. In the 1km Time Trial Dan gained a third national title in 1:03.212. All of this was achieved off the back of only two months of track specific training. 2017 has also seen Jonny break the long standing British flying 1km record with 57:412.
 
Following this modern-day David and Goliath story, the quartet were inspired to step up onto the world stage by entering the Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup.
“We are a group of lads who all work full time apart from Charlie and he’s a student who’s in trouble for missing lectures,” Jacob said. “The idea is to mix it with the big boys and see how far we can get. GB were really helpful in Poland, they’ve been very supportive, but we are still gluing on our own tyres and booking our own flights. It’s the only way to step on to the system.”
The results from Round 2 of the World Cup show just how talented this amateur team are. There results show they have what it takes to challenge the National teams – we are hoping to see Jonny on another podium soon!

Anna Semler (Nugent 05)