Taking the kids to the races: The Welsh Madison Champs

On Saturday evening I took my two girls to see the Welsh Madison Champs at Newport Velodrome. I wasn't sure what they would think of it. I guessed they would get bored and we be leaving after half an hour. Well how wrong was I? They loved it. Explaining the rules of the Madison Devil was a little hard so I just told them about the hand sling. The fact they were paired up and you if you came last you were out. Seemed simple enough. I took some colouring pens and some puzzzle books for them to at least not get too bored.
The warm up confused them as they couldn't understand why they were not racing even though some of them were going very fast. The racing started and they kept asking me who was the best. I had no idea other than that the 100%Me guys would be fast and probably the Wiggle boys to. They picked Wiggle Team as they were easy to spot and Wiggle is a funny word. I had no idea Ben Simmons of Wiggle was doing the National Cyclocross on the Sunday and just assumed the one Wiggle rider was him. It wasn't it was Jon 'Euro' Cannings and Anthony O'boyle of team Torq. So my kids were shouting for Ben and Boyler. Only later when I spotted Cannings in the crowd did I realise. Oh well.
The Wiggle boys got a bit confused with 3 sprints to go and thought they were out but sadly they were not and they had already dropped back. 100% won the Madison Devil my kids had no idea what was going on but loved cheering and that was that.
The next race was the 'B' Madison, the race for riders not keen on racing with the Elite riders. There were Girls in this race. My youngest found out that number 27 was a girl called Emily and that's what she screamed every time she passed. I think they like this event the best as there were girls riding. There was a crash on the far side which we missed as the girls were in the toilet. Glad they missed it. Not nice to see crashes.
The main even was one of the most one sided races I have ever seen on a track. The 100%Me boys who are GB development are both awesome. Both local lads. Jon Mould and Sam Harrison. They didn't win all the sprints but they did lap the field five times. Matt Rowe was commentating and is clearly quite pally with they boys riding. Lots of banter about Jon Mould's yellow Mavic shoes through out the race. This time my girls shouted for Wiggle and Cwmcarn Paragon. My daughter shouting Cwmcarn as loud as she could was quite funny. Most of the evening we were sat next to Legro and Lee Povey of Fast Track Coaching. They had some riders in the races and Lee was coaching them from the wings.

What a night. They announced that the next races would be held at the Velodrome on the 5th of Feb. That should be a little easier for the kids to follow.

British Cycling Report