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TFIS - Dundee junior aiming for British title
With the National Track Championships looming this weekend, Dundee
cyclist Kevin Stewart has hit his best form at the perfect time.
Last week in Edinburgh, the 16 year old broke the all-comers record for the youth 500 metres time trial in a time of 36.25 seconds. At the same event he won the Youth sprint and finished sixth in the senior Kilometre event. His time of 1 minute 13 seconds was just a second off the Scottish junior record.
Surprisingly, Stewart has been a bike racer for little over a year. I hadn't even cycled before I joined the Discovery Youth club two years ago; I'd just done a bit of swimming, he said. I went along one Saturday to the cycle track at Dundee with my dad. I liked it straight away and started proper racing a year ago.
I tried some road racing but am not too great at that. I'm a sprinter and the 500 metre time trial is my main event.
But with Chris Hoy and Craig McLean as his role models, so motivating seeing where they are now and thinking that I could be there, and with support from recently-formed Discovery Junior team and the Tayside & Fife Institute of Sport, his progress has been remarkable.
All the coaching at the club has made a huge difference, he said. I've been on the British Youth Sprint Squad since October which has brought me on. Scottish Cycling fly me down to Newport in Wales for training camps every month and I train at Manchester also.
I joined the Tayside and Fife Institute in the autumn and they give me so much support. If there's anything you need they are there. I'd not done weight training before but it's become a big part of my training programmes and it makes such a difference.
The Area Institutes of Sport network provides high performance expertise to Scotland's potential world class talent. The network supports Scottish governing body-identified athletes as they progress along their sporting pathway.
The Area Institutes of Sport work with partners to build greater success for Scottish sport. Its expert teams work together to deliver essential support services locally in sports medicine, sports science, strength and conditioning and career and lifestyle guidance.
With his preparation and form just about perfect, Stewart heads to Newport for the British Championships (19-24 August).
At the Nationals I'm hoping to win the 500 metre time trial and sprint, he said. I know all the people I'm racing against and we're all pretty closely matched.
Long term I'm hoping to go the Olympics. If I do well then I'm hoping it will give me the chance of getting on the Olympic Development programme, which will help take me to the Olympics.