Last year, Hellyer initiated a women's team pursuit program run by Michael Hernandez and Beth Newell. Beth was the 2011 Elite Track National Omnium Champion and raced professionally as a domestic for Norvartis. The goal is to develop women for the 2016 Olympics. The short term goal was to podium at Elite Nationals in 2012. The program commenced in July with the championship in September.

The first couple of sessions drew 48 women into the program. Some had not been on the track before. Most showed up for team pursuit practice with drop bars versus aerobars. Bikes and bike fit were all over the map. Only three of the women, ever raced on or was certified at Carson on the 250 track with 45 degree banking. However, enthusiasm was off the charts. Michael is a natural promoter / announcer and a Cat 1 road and trackie.

My wife wanted to participate in the program so I volunteered to help and became sponsorship, mechanic, holder and videographer.

No one was cut or discouraged from participation. Our goal was to take as many teams to Nationals as possible. The women self selected their participation and many dropped out. This was especially true when we started to hold team pursuit races.

In the end, we had five teams with 3 women on a team, sponsors and 3 of the five teams identified as sponsored teams which meant they received partial reimbursement for expenses.

The task now was to go to Carson, CA and learn the 250 track. So on a weekend in August 15 women went to Carson and practiced on the track. Now everyone had aerobars, bike fit was improved but not perfect (for many reasons) and enthusiasm was beyond anything I could imagine.

I did video and photography for the sessions and posted the videos at the end of the session for critique.

Since this is a program and not a team, USA cycling, allowed the club members to register under their team name and wear a special jersey that we designed and provided. In fact, I talked with Tom Mahoney, race director at Nationals and USAC was ecstatic with our program. As a side note, he wished MEA luck and USAC was routing for her. The key thing we got from them was the right to race teams together as a program.

So how did it workout? Beth's team (Quads and Dots) came in second and Team Tibco II was 4th. So we had two teams on the podium. Exergy, a pro team, won by a couple of seconds. The women also raced in other events and won other medals. The two women on MEA's pursuit team as shown in the video, came in second in team sprint. Our fast 45 team set a national record for 45+ and MEA had the race and time of her life.

Beth's team was invited to the USAC training camp and did 10 days of practice with other women at Velo Sports Center last month. Beth was selected to be on the team to represent the USA in the Pan Am games this year in Mexico City. She won gold in the scratch race.

Do I think Beth et al are going to the Olympics in 2016 - absolutely. Will they beat the Brits. Why not. We threw the tea overboard didn't we?

Here is a video I made for the women. It is from the practice 3k team pursuits on the second day of training at VSC with a couple of pics at the end of the pursuit finals and the women who made the podium. My wife was on the Soul Sistahs.

The program restarts this Sunday at Hellyer.