The Piste Take

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After recovering from our respective coaching & commentary duties we decided to give an insight and flavour into the 2026 UCI World Track Championships in Shanghai, China. We digest the Harrie Lavreysen Hegemony over the Men's Sprint events, Chinese takeover of Women's sprinting and some of the fastest ever Team Pursuit's ever seen. The bunch racing in Shanghai delivered many times over with Irish hearts warmed by Lara Gillespie's Points Race victory, Danish dominance in the Men's Madison and the rise of Anna Morris as a pre-eminent force in Women's Endurance.

Please tune in to hear us lift the lid on the biggest event of the year in Track Cycling and what this means for the Olympic Qualification route ahead.

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Rachel Draper joins us to unpack the story behind Wales’ brilliant Commonwealth Games campaign — from the emotional highs and lows of team sprint to building a squad culture that had everyone singing the anthem.

We chat about Rachel’s unconventional route into cycling, from dropping out of physics and becoming a tandem pilot to coaching world-class riders. She explains how agricultural shows, Wattbikes and a lot of persistence helped rebuild the Welsh men’s sprint programme, plus the realities of working alongside the GB pathway.

There’s also plenty on female coaching, managing race-day nerves, developing young riders, and what’s next for Welsh sprinting.

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It's been a while since Kelsey Mitchell was on the show, and honestly, she's basically lived three athletic careers since our last conversation. We're catching up with the Tokyo gold medalist about everything that's happened since, including a stint in speed skating, and a surprise pivot to bobsleigh that landed her a spot at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. And now, her return to the velodrome! 

Kelsey opens up about what it was like walking away from cycling after a tough Paris 2024 and dealing with real burnout after years at the top. We talk about how she ended up trying speed skating, why it didn't stick, and how a bobsled tryout in Calgary turned into representing Canada at a Winter Games, making her one of a small handful of Canadians to compete in both Summer and Winter Olympics.

She also gets into why she's back on two wheels now, training at the brand-new Alberta Velodrome near her hometown , what rehabbing a long-standing leg issue has looked like, and yes  whether LA 2028 is on the table for a fourth Olympic Games.

This is a wild one. Kelsey's done more in the last two years than most athletes do in a decade.

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Now we're all recovered from a super busy Commonwealth Games for both Lewis & Jonny we thought now is the best time to review it, chat through some of the trends and answer the biggest question of all: What is the point of the Commonwealth Games? To tackle these big questions we brought on track cycling legend, expert commentator and 2-time Olympic Champion, Joanna Rowsell. We hear all about Lewis & Jo's experience on the commentary team and some of Jonny's insights from the track centre. We hope you enjoy!

Fundraiser for Anna Kolyzhuk, please support if you can: https://gofund.me/0ceec4cd7

Thanks again to the Legendary Joanna Rowsell for jumping on with us, and as always our sponsors at the Velodrome Shop. You can check them out today at www.velodrome.shop

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Jonny and Lewis fly solo to wrap up day 4 with our most tired, but also most inspired day yet. We chat through home crowd disappointments with Scotland narrowly missing out on some big wins, alongside continued Aussie and Welsh dominance - from Finucane’s clean sweep to Hoffman’s mind blowing kilo. We also got debrief Manxman Matt Bostock’s remarkable points race win & the last day of Commgame’s Paracycling Programme. 

We will be back with a full debrief of the games once we’ve recovered and a little bit more cold light of day to analyse the results so please stay tuned!

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We're back for day 3 after a dramatic day of tandem tension, scratch crashes, dominant aussie sprinting and Welsh Women's Wonders

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We are back again, slightly more sober, slightly more tired for Day 2 of the Commonwealth Games. We get into it with the best keirin rider of all time - Azizulhasni Awang - and his mindblowing display in that Men's Keirin final. We also chat through Lewis' experiences with TNT and all the day's best racing bits and titbits. Tune in again tomorrow for Day 3

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We are joined by returning podcast guest Lewis Oliva fresh from his CG 4th place heroics! This is a messy episode complete with beers, stories and lessons to us why not to invite Lewis Oliva to a short form episode. Hope you enjoy!

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Join us on the Pistetake for our preview episode of the 2026 Commonwealth Games in the heart of track cycling - Glasgow! We look ahead to the events we're most excited for, the teams we're backing for success and the riders we expect to feature across the individual events too. 

Note for listeners: We recorded this before Matt Richardson sadly got wiped out racing in Japan so he now won't be competing across the week. Sending our best wishes to Matt in his recovery.

All this week we'll be doing a nightly round up of each day of racing. Tune in to hear our thoughts tomorrow night on Day 1!!

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Ahead of the Commonwealth Games we speak to Ciara Oliva, after she completed one of the most amazing comebacks in track cycling. After her career on GBCT and the disappointment of being a reserve at the Rio Olympics, Ciara has came back after 10 years retirement, 3 kids and a whole other career to compete for Wales at her 3rd Commonwealth Games. We talk through the whole journey, and it's an inspiring one.