Howler in Holland costs Hoy and GB dear

Capital cycling ace Sir Chris Hoy suffered another European Championship nightmare in Holland yesterday when he and his Great Britain colleagues, Jason Kenny and Matt Crampton failed to reach the medal deciders in the team sprint.

The plan had been to allow Jason Queally to replace Kenny in the second ride. However, Kenny spun his wheel as he left the starting gate in qualifying and was overtaken by Hoy. That should have constituted a false start. But, despite an appeal, competition officials insisted that the effort would stand and that left the Brits in fifth place behind France, Germany, Poland and Holland with a time of 44.933 seconds.

Hoy later explained his view of the situation, saying on his social media page: “Jason slipped as he pulled away from the line, I clearly overtook him to trigger a false start but the officials didn’t fire the gun so we had to continue.

“We were 0.6 (seconds) down on the fastest team overall after half a lap and pulled it back to 0.3 by then end.”

Kenny and Hoy were due back in the saddle today to contest the individual sprint, the event in which Hoy suffered an embarrassing early exit last year.