Estimated
time for when Tom Perkins races the Madison tonight is
6:30pm Eastern (3:30 Pacific), teamed with our very capable friend Elói Batista. They will be racing for Jakroo Racing. Tom and Elói are young Canadian
cyclists making their way international track cycling.
This
is an UCI sanctioned event
run by Cycling Canada at
the Mattamy National Cycling Centre in Milton, Ontario, Canada.
You
can find start lists and results for the event here.
See
live stream link here. It is FREE and will show some incredible
racing.
The
announcer is superb, providing excellent commentary to help understand what is
going on. I will update along her name after I find it out. Her commentating
style is much like Anthony McCrossan, my
favorite announcer for cycling races.
We
are working on landing a spot for Tom to compete as a guest
rider on an UCI trade team at the upcoming 2018 Milton World Cup (end
of October 2018), or subsequent World Cup events. Any interested UCI Track
trade teams, please contact his coach via coach.
After
this event, Tom will be moving to a new cycling team. We will announce this
team, as well as the 501(c)(3) charitable organization targeted at supporting
young amateur cyclists shortly.
We
are still working on funding sources for Tom's racing career, the new team, and
other cyclists and teams that the charitable organization will support. More
details will be published in the near future. In the mean time, if you wish to
help with funding, please contact the team owner for details.
The
Madison is one of track cycling's most exciting events. It can look like pure
chaos on the track. The officials do an amazing job of keeping track of who is
who, what team they are on, what lap they are on, who is up a lap, who is down
a lap, who is lead, etc...
You
can find a description of the Madison.
The
Madison allows for more speed and acceleration as the riders have time to
recover briefly while their team mate has a go, then get literally thrown back
into the mix for their turn.
For
my non-cycling friends, if you want to see a race that is crazy fun, this is
THE race to watch.
9
teams have entered. 160 laps (40km) with sprints every 10. It is essentially a
points race with two riders per team exchanging like a relay race over and
over. Start list for the Elite Men's Madison is here.
The
teams that are registered are FAST! They raced to the max yesterday in the
Omnium with 5 races (including qualifier) totaling 75km at average speeds well
in excess or 35 mph (56kmph) and sprints exceeding 42 mph (68kmph)
Yesterday's
Omnium started with a qualifier to decide the fastest 24 of 32 registered
racers to compete in the Elite Men's Omnium. The qualifier was two heats of 16
cyclists competing in a 15km Points race. In the qualifying points race, Tom
Perkins placed 3rd in the faster of the two qualifier heats, easily qualifying
to compete in the Omnium.
The
Omnium consisted of the qualfier, followed by a 10km Scratch race, a 10km Tempo
race, the Elimination race and finally, the 15km Points race. You can find
results for yesterday's Omnium here and watch it here.
Tom
finished 12th overall in the Omnium - a very credible result for his first time
competing at an UCI or National event as an Elite level athlete. Tom's prior
competitions at this level were as a U19 (under 19) cyclist.
A
big thank you to the following organizations for supporting Tom's cycling
career:
Science in Sport Tesseract Group, LLC American Cyclery Jakroo Canada Jakroo Custom Apparel FFWD Wheels FFWD USA
Radial Sports