November 14, 2006 – The UCI Track Cycling World Cup “Classics” 2006-2007 will start on Friday, Nov. 17 in Sydney (AUS) for the first time since the creation of the “Classics” format of competition in 2003. The opening event of the series will take place at Dunc Gray velodrome, where the final World Cup last year was held.

The other events in this the 5th UCI Track Cycling World Cup “Classics” will be held in Moscow (RUS) on December 15-17 2006, Los Angeles (USA) on January 19-21, 2007 and in Manchester (GBR) on February 23-25, 2007.

Track cycling is currently meeting a very significant development on international level, and two new records were set during the first meetings of the season:

242 riders – 179 men and 63 women from 32 countries – as well as 7 track teams (2 AUS and ESP, 1 UKR, RUS, GBR) will participate in the 16 events on the program of this first leg of the series which will end on Sunday, November 19,

Amongst the specialists who will be present in Sydney are no less than 8 World Champions:

– Natallia Tsylinskaya (BLR), 500 metres and sprint;
– Arnaud Tourant (FRA), team sprint;
– Theo Bos (NED), keirin and sprint;
– Chris Hoy (GBR), kilometre;
– Isaac Galvez Lopez (ESP), Madison;
– Peter Dawson, Mark Jamieson, Stephen Wooldridge (AUS), team sprint.

The strong increase in the number of track professional teams (only 2 in 2005) confirms the growth of a discipline that has excellent future perspectives.