Federation hopes for 2024 Olympics

IT HAS now been 60 years since Jamaica won an Olympic bronze in cycling, the island’s only medal outside of athletics at the Games, a statistic the Jamaica Cycling Federation (JCF) is aiming to address.

JCF president Dr Wayne Palmer said in order to achieve that goal, getting to the big stage is a hurdle his organisation must contend with.

And one of the longest-standing issues in getting there is the need for a new velodrome in Jamaica, he said.

“We are lucky to have a velodrome any at all (because) there are countries who do not have a velodrome any at all and therefore track cycling, which is primarily what the velodrome is for does not occur at all and athletes would have to go overseas to train in order to do that,” Palmer said.

“However, the velodrome that we have has really been around for decades now and at the time which it was built, that would have been the ideal velodrome – an outdoor concrete velodrome, 500-metre track. However, we have now really gone beyond that and we have indoor velodromes and they are smaller in size, 250 metres. In fact, the one that is at the World Cycling Centre in Swtzerland is 200 metres and these indoor velodromes are wooden surfaces so the rolling resistance is less and the cyclist can actually attain faster speeds without the wind resistance and rolling resistance of the concrete and so we are well behind with where that is.

Palmer also lamented the improper use of the cycle track for other major sporting events, which has caused damage over the years.

In a JIS release, the Government said as a part for their plans to remodel the National Stadium, Jamaica will be getting a modern 250-metre velodrome to replace the old 500-metre track.

“In fact, what we have to do now, when our athletes are training [is] they have to be sent to either Cuba or Trinidad [and Tobago]. They can’t train on [the Stadium velodrome] because when they go on a proper velodrome, it is totally different,” General manager for Independence Park Limited (IPL), Major Desmon Brown, said in the article.

Palmer said the federation welcomes this decision and are hoping this will be built in the near feature.

Aleady in dialogue with the Government, Palmer is foreseeing “a state-of-the-art sports facility which will include an indoor velodrome at 250 metres, at international specs.”

To date, the Jamaica Olympic Association has been very helpful to the cycling association and while Palmer is forever grateful, the bugbear of no real facilities is problematic.

Still, Palmer believes, all things being equal, having representation in two events at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris is a real possibility, especially bearing in mind the back-to-back qulifications the country has had to the last two Cycling Road World Championships.

“We have Dahlia Palmer who is ranked in the top 50 in the world in track cycling and she narrowly missed out on qualifying for the World Championships this year (but) we are hoping that next year she would be better able to qualify for the World Championships. And of course, we have Llori Sharpe who is accruing points and hopefully by next year, she will have sufficient points to be able to qualify for the Olympics.”