Opinion: Add another 250 m to the kilo in track racing

The UCI made some long-awaited changes to track racing on Wednesday. For several years, the men and women raced different distances in some key events. The men raced 4 km in the pursuit, versus the women’s 3 km. The men did a 1 km time trial, whereas the women did 500 m. A 500 m time trial is not comparable to a 1 km test, so the distances never made sense. Most likely, it was part of an antiquated notion about sport and what men could handle, distance-wise, and what women could. But racing two laps of a track versus four is not even remotely the same. Imagine if women did a 50 m dash, and the men ran 100 m at the Olympics. Finally, the UCI has made changes. Starting January 1, 2025, women will race the same distance as the men. The pursuit will be 4 km for both men and women, and women will also race 1 km for the time trial.

“It’s really exciting as the 4 km is a great benchmark,” Chris Reid, the executive director of the National Cycling Institute Milton, said. “You’ll really get to appreciate just how fast, say, a Chloé Dygert is.”

Gold for Foley, Mitchell, van Dam and Hedgecock on last day of Canadian track cycling nationals

Although the move was welcomed by most in the track community, given the faster bikes, kit, and track surfaces, some are wondering: Is 1000 m too short in the modern era?

Two-time Olympian Shaun Wallace think that tacking an extra lap onto the kilo might be a good idea. “Making the women’s kilo 500 m was one of the dumbest moves I’ve seen. It turned an exciting race into something that was pretty boring. I’m glad they finally fixed that,” he said.

Shaun Wallace, left, Francis Moreau and Colin Sturgess on the podium at the World Professional Pursuit Championships 1991. (? Graham Watson) pic.twitter.com/ygIh6WagC6

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In Wallace’s day, a kilo would take just over a minute, anywhere from 1:02 to 1:03. In his opinion, that meant the last lap would be tense and exciting. Riders might drop the anchor and there would be considerable drama. Now, however, they are riding five to six seconds faster and some of that excitement is lost as the finals are so close.

“Let’s look at the men’s kilo for a minute, or rather for 57 seconds because that’s all it takes nowadays with faster bikes and tracks. The problem there is that it’s all over just as the event is about to get exciting. I think we’ve all watched hundreds of kilos where things change drastically on the last half lap,” he says. “Now, all the kilos pretty much look the same, and nothing exciting really ever happens, right? So how about increasing the men’s kilo to 1250 m?”

As well as creating parity between the men’s and women’s pursuits and kilo, the UCI also made changes to the scratch race distance. Before the change, women raced 10 km and the men raced 15 km. The UCI has adjusted this going forward. However, it’s not by increasing the women’s distance, rather by shortening the men’s.

Reid thinks this will make the event considerably more fun to watch for spectators. “I think that the men’s race will be super fast, similar to what they did in Nordic skiing, shorten the events,” he said.