Colne Olympic cycling hero sets sights on another medal (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Colne Olympic cycling hero sets sights on another medal

5:00pm Tuesday 24th March 2009 in

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Olympic hero Steven Burke says he is not putting himself under too pressure as he prepares to represent Great Britain at the Track Cycling World Championships.

The 21-year-old from Colne, who flew out to Poland with the rest of the squad on Saturday, secured bronze in the individual pursuit behind Chorley-based compatriot Bradley Wiggins as the British team swept all before them in Beijing last year.

Burke is now ready for the biggest event of 2009 in Pruskow, which runs from Wednesday until Sunday, and is concentrating on gold in the 4,000m team pursuit, in which he has the lead-off role.

He may also compete in the individual pursuit and the omnium – the cycling equivalent of the pentathlon – but he knows time is on his side as he prepares for London 2012.

“I think I am better now than I was in Beijing, because I’ve done a lot of training in the winter,” he said.

“My times are getting stronger, so I’m just going to keep working on that because I’ll be starting off in the team pursuit.

“I’ve been gaining more experience and more confidence. I’m learning all the time.

“I’d like to do the individual pursuit as well, but I’m still developing because I’m still quite young.

“When I raced in Beijing I wasn’t expecting too much because I’ve only done eight individual pursuits, so I won’t be putting too much pressure on myself.”

Burke missed December’s BBC Sports Personality awards, when the Olympic cycling squad won the team of the year award, because he was out of the country.

He was happy to see team-mate Chris Hoy claim the individual award but knows the squad’s outstanding performance in Beijing has increased expectations ahead of the World Championships.

And changes to the British team mean that, despite cruising to gold on both of his recent World Cup appearances, victory is far from a foregone conclusion for Burke this time.

Burke is joined by Jonathan Bellis, Mark Cavendish, Ed Clancy, Peter Kennaugh, and Chris Newton in the endurance squad, and thoughts of beating last year’s world record of 3mins 53.314secs are on the backburner.

“It won’t be easy because two of the Olympic team, Geraint Thomas and Bradley Wiggins, won’t be there this time and Paul Manning has retired, so it’s a new squad,” said Burke, who did not compete in the team pursuit in Beijing.

“It is more of a challenge to win without them, so if we can still win, it will be good.

“I think there will be pressure on us after Beijing, but if everyone rides to the best of their ability that’s all we can do.

“We did well in the World Cup and won the rounds, but I think it will be closer in the this time because there are two or three countries who can challenge.

“Denmark and New Zealand are our main rivals. We did beat them in the World Cups but they didn’t have all their riders out, so they will have much stronger sides this time.

“We’ll be aiming for a time of 3:58 or 3:57. I don’t think we’ll be troubling the world record from Beijing.

“But we’re building towards 2012.”