Pulling together

Britain's team pursuit squad of Chris Newton, Rob Hayles, Matt Illingworth and Bryan Steel are going to Atlanta with realistic ambitions of squeezing in amongst the medals

Chris Newton, 22, Middlesbrough (also reserve for road race and individual time trial). One of Britain's most talented young riders, has his eye on a place on a continental team next year.
Silver medal Commonwealth Games 4,000 metres team pursuit, 1994 National 20km champion, 1993 and 1995
1st Archer Grand Prix, 1995 1st overall Thwaites Tour of Lancashire, 1996
2nd overall and King of the Mountains Tour de Langkawi, Malaysia, 1996

QUIETLY confident in his own ability, Chris Newton, 22, hails from Middlesbrough and is one of Britain's brightest prospects. He is perhaps the strongest man in the team pursuit line-up, and is tall like Matt Illingworth and Rob Hayles.

As young as he is, Newton is no stranger to top level competition. He was part of the foursome who took eighth place at the world championships in Colombia last year. The year before, he won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in the team pursuit.

Although self-assured about his own prospects, he is wary of opening up in interviews. However, when he does he reveals a dry sense of humour.

The Tees-sider was never in any doubt he would be selected for the team pursuit squad at the Olympics. `I feel I am one of the strongest in the team. I shouldn't have to worry about anything,' he told me at Busto Garolfo, where he made a good impression at the World Cup round in May. It was his second World Cup outing after riding the points race in Athens the week before.

Former runner

Like his Olympic team-mates at North Wirral Velo, Marie Purvis and Yvonne McGregor, Newton comes from a running background. At the time of the 1992 Olympics he was still a cross-country runner and 100-metre sprinter, but while Chris Boardman was tasting Olympic glory, Newton was making the crossover to the senior cycling development squad.

`Yes, I've done everything at school, but running was my strong point,' explains Newton. `I was a 100-metre sprint champion, Middlesbrough and Cleveland county champion and was third in the national crosscountry championships.'

From running shoes to cycling shoes, the Newton success story continued, although 1992 got off to a bad start. His trip to the Texas Games in Barbados was thwarted when he was involved in a collision with a car and cut his knee.

Bandaged up for four weeks, Newton came back to take fifth place in the national pursuit championship won by Boardman.

`In 1993 I rode the Tour of the Kingdom and won a lot of road races classed as chippers, as well as the national 20-kilometre scratch title and the Centre of Excellence championship,' said Newton, looking back. `I also went off to Australia to ride the Commonwealth Bank Classic.'

Having proved himself on the track at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, Newton then gave notice of his road race talent last season when he won the Archer Grand Prix in Buckinghamshire, and generally regarded as one of the toughest Premier Calendar races.

When he finished second overall in the Malaysian Tour of Langkawi this year, winning the mountains' classification, and followed that in May with victory in the Thwaites Tour of Lancashire, his desire to race on the Continent became even more understandable.

Atlanta and beyond

`I don't see the Olympics as a goal, more of a stepping stone,' Newton declared in Italy. `I want to make cycling a career. I'm full time now, but I'm not getting paid enough to class it as a career. I've got something. I reckon I can make it.'

Does he admire any particular rider, a Classics winner or Tour winner?

The young northerner preferred not to single out any particular rider for praise. He admires everyone who has made it, not just those with special qualities, but the grafters who have worked their way up.

`They've used what they've got. I admire Chris (Boardman) a lot. He came from a track background and made it on the Continent. These are the type of people I want to be racing against, so you can't have too much respect,' says Newton, allowing himself half a smile.

What does he think has been his best result so far?

`I think maybe the Archer. That was the big breakthrough. It's a big race. But with me it wears off very quickly. It's great to see your picture in Cycling Weekly, it makes your family so pleased. But it just wears off and I've got other things to do.'

With Newton it's a case of been there, done this, done that. `Once I've won something, 1 don't see why I have to win it again. You've proved you can do it. You move on to something else. Now I've won track titles, I've won one of the longest road races in Britain, I've won Britain's biggest stage race - that's currently running. So I don't need to do any of that anymore. I want to move on to something bigger.'

Olympic preparation

`I've treated the season as two halves,' Newton says of his Olympic preparation. `I never stopped training, I went quite hard through the winter. Last year I started in February and ended in December. I started in February again this year.'

His road season ended with victory in the Tour of Lancashire in May, when he switched to the track. `The Olympics is quite early this year so we started track training quite early. Last year I was on the road right until the national road race. I do quite a lot on the road, I'm quite a hard trainer. Lots of endurance, lots of level two rides.

`As soon as the track takes over, it's a different grade really, short and intense. So you never seem to get fatigued.'

On the road he trains over the fiercely steep Rosedale Chimney on the North Yorkshire Moors, but also makes use of the flat roads to the west, and he also has the use of Cleveland track.

`I've got quite a good training area, and I've got good training partners as well. I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather train.

`I get ribbed by Pete [Longbottom - North Wirral velo team-mate] about it all being full of smog, but that's just around the river area. Middlesbrough's not a big town and it takes about 10 minutes to get out into the country.'

His coach is, of course, Peter Keen, a key man in Boardman's preparation. `He leaves me to myself to do the road racing in the early part of the season. But I need his expertise more on the track side of things,' Newton says of Keen's approach.

Newton then goes on to note the differences between the solitary nature of running and the collective aspect of the team pursuit. `After not being in a team much before I now find myself in a team pursuit where it's more than just physical ability that counts. You rely on people's tactics to dictate.'

Much of the training time is spent learning to ride as an efficient, fluent unit. `You've got to know your riders. In Colombia, we'd lost Rob, who was one of the very good riders, and Simon [Lillistone] wasn't going particularly strongly. But it was before the championships and we had no chance to change, so Simon was doing half laps and the rest were doing laps.

`You've got to have an understanding. The rider who is not going well has got to realise he is not going well, and accept that he's going to have to do half turns as he can't contribute as much as the others, but that's what it's all about. You've got to have faith in the rider in front, because you are riding so close, about an inch apart. Simon's the best, he rubs the tyre all the way around.'

In Italy in May, Shaun Wallace had just come out to join the team and was not quite up to their level of preparation. However, Newton still trusted him. `We know Shaun's ability through his past record so we've got quite a lot faith in him. But this year because we knew this was the team that would go the Olympics (though Simon Lillistone was the unlucky one who did not make the cut.- Ed). We trained together, we even rode the Tour in Malaysia as the team pursuit squad.

`That was one part of our year of team building. We had a week-long session at Manchester in March, the World Cups (Athens and Italy), it was like being in and out of each other's hair constantly.'

After a few days' break, they rode at the national championships at the end of May, when the squad was picked. At the World Cup meet in Cottbus, Germany, at the end of June the team's morale was boosted by taking third place, their best ride of the year.

Asked if he has any particular strength, Newton says versatility is his strength. `I can climb, I can sprint, time trial a bit,' he adds with a grin.

`I've won all the prologues I've ridden in stage races, and the time trial in the Lancs. And they've all been by quite hefty margins for the distance.'

He's done a 19-20 for a `10', `49-something' for a `25', and was bronze medallist in the recent 25mile championship. `I'm not one for looking for fast courses. I'm not into that. I just look at the margin I've beaten the second guy by and usually it's a few minutes... so that's good enough for me.'