Specialist Cars are very proud to sponsor local athlete and cyclist destined for the London 2012 games, Laura Trott. Laura excels in her field and is currently the senior world champion in the team pursuit. Here is a little more about Laura and the events she competes in:

There are two events on the track that Laura can take part in, which are the Team Pursuit and the Omnium.

The Team pursuit is an event in which three girls go on the track as a team and have to set the fastest time that they can and finish as a three. Each girl takes it in turns to set the pace on the front of the line, the stronger riders will do longer turns, so more laps on the front. The race is over 3km long.

The second event is the Omnium. This is like an athletics pentathlon. There are 6 events in this race. The Flying lap, which is on your own and you set the quickest time you can. The Points race, which is a bunch race where all rider will be on the track, around 25 people, and on every 10th lap there is a sprint for points. The person who crosses the line will get 5 points, 2nd will get 3points, 3rd will get 2 points and 4th will get 1 point. Everyone else would get none. The person with the most amount of points at the end of 30km would then win. There is then an Elimination race which is every lap the rider who crosses the line last gets pulled out and must exit the track. Until there are 2 people left on the track and they will sprint for the win. That is then the end of day one. Day two consists of an Individual pursuit, which is like team pursuit but on your own for 3km. So the fastest person to complete 3km wins. This is followed by a scratch race which again is everyone on the track but it’s a simple as the first person across the line wins and this is over 20km. The final race of the competition is the 500m time trial. This is an individual for 500m and the person with the quickest time wins.

Laura has been World Champion at both of these events. She was Junior World Champion in the Omnium last year and she is currently Senior World Champion in the Team Pursuit at Senior level which she won when she was just 18 and the only Great Britain rider to have done this!

For London 2012 there are currently 8 riders on the long list for the Team Pursuit, one of which is Laura. There are 2 riders for the Omnium again one of them being Laura. But having been told last week that the Omnium rider will come out of the Team Pursuit at the moment, Laura is in a great position as the 2nd rider on the list doesn't rider team pursuit.

Laura started cycling when she was 8 years old down at the Welwyn Track and has been National Champion 17 times in a number of different events including; road racing, grass track and track. She currently holds the National record in the Individual pursuit for juniors. Laura has won the 2 world titles and has also been European Champion at Junior Level and again this year at Senior Level both for Team Pursuit.



Laura’s Ambitions
My biggest ambition is to become Olympic Champion. I have always thought that 2016 would be my first Olympics as it seems to fall at a good age for me. But looking at this year already I am now going to target 2012 and would like to become Olympic champion then. I see myself targeting the double which not many people can say they could possibly achieve.
I would like to compete in at least 3 Olympic Games. I see myself targeting Track again for 2016 rather then focusing on a road career for the following Olympics. Depending on how 2012 goes of course.

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