Four Champions League winners will be crowned in a double header final weekend in London, no not that Champions League but track cycling’s premier competition.
This Champion’s League hosts the best track cyclists from not just Europe but the World.
Both the two major disciplines of track cycling have been streamlined in the UCI’s latest attempt to boost the popularity of track cycling.
The new rapid-fire event shortens the time between races for a better product for TV and fans in the velodrome.
The individual league format splits the field into sprint and endurance athletes like every major track cycling event but with both fields only hosting two events.
The endurance riders face an elimination race and a scratch race.
The elimination format is a knockout format with every two laps the last rider across the line being eliminated until the field is cut from 18 to just one rider.
The scratch is a 20-lap race with any riders lapped by the main peloton eliminated.
On the sprint side of things, it is split between the Keirin, and a three-lap sprint after following a neutral pace, and the Sprint which is a knockout format putting two or three riders head-to-head in a three-lap race.
The Lee Valley Velodrome hosts rounds four and five on Friday and Saturday night.
Home hero Katie Archibald leads the Women’s Endurance standings after an excruciatingly close second-place finish last season.
Britain’s Olympic gold medallist leads Anita Stenberg by only 12 points after the first three rounds in Majolica, Berlin and Paris.
In the Men’s Sprint, it’s a repeat of last year’s head-to-head battle between the Australian Mathew Richardson and Dutch World Champion Harrie Levreysen.
It’s last year’s winner and current Sprint and Keirin World Champion Levreysen who leads the standings by 24 points to Richardson.
Poland’s Mateusz Reuydk could cause an upset sitting ten points behind the Aussie in third.
In the Women’s Sprint it’s a two-horse race as Kiwi, Ellesse Andrews leads Alessa-Catriona Pröpster as the German only trails by nine points with four events left.
Canadian Dylan Bibic has the lowest points out of all the leaders with 96 in the Men’s Endurance but has a 26-point advantage to Belgian Jules Hesters with Japan’s Eiya Hashimoto a single point behind.
With 80 points still available with the final two rounds to go it’s still wide open in all categories.
