Trudy Lindblade is looking for a quiet place to chat which is not proving easy. It has been the story of her week.
Everywhere the Australian has visited in her role of chief executive of these inaugural combined UCI world cycling championships she has been greeted with a wall of noise, colour and clamour, from those lining the streets of the ‘Mur de Montrose’ climb to support the road racers, to the velodrome, the BMX tracks and beyond.
On Friday Lindblade was at Glentress Forest near Peebles to watch the cross-country mountain biking, the decibels going up a notch as Charlie Aldridge powered through to become under-23 world champion. Having Scottish success stories undoubtedly helps raise the profile of an event of this nature but the feeling is that the people of Glasgow and beyond would have embraced these championships regardless. Organisers claim that by the end of the competition this evening close to one million spectators will have gathered to watch the 13 disciplines in action.
Scotland can never be described as a cycling country per se and you didn’t have to be a huge cynic to question whether locals would get behind something like this, especially with a new football season kicking off around the same time. There were the inevitable grumbles, too, about road closures and other inconvenient obstacles to day-to-day life. The overriding sensation, however, is that these championships – the first of their kind – can be considered a triumph.
“We’ve been planning all of this for a couple of years but for a brand-new event that’s not a massive lead-in time,” says Lindblade. “But I have to say I’m really pleased with how it’s all gone. We’ve had such great support right across Scotland at all the venues. I had high expectations beforehand but it’s already surpassed those.
“The Scottish public has really got behind it all. We knew in advance that, for the ticketed events, sales had been strong but with the free events you’re never entirely sure how the public will interact with them until the day. But it’s been terrific to see the passion for it all. If you went to Glasgow Green where the BMX events were taking place it was like being at a disco with cycling in the middle!
“It was such a lively event and a really good atmosphere. And there was brilliant engagement everywhere. The town of Peebles just looked amazing with all the bunting up, and shopfront decorations with people all out on their bikes. It was a really proud moment to see that.
“We know that major events can also disrupt people’s lives and we were upfront with that at the beginning. We tried to eliminate it or minimise it as much as possible. But there’s something about major events that bring out a sense of civic pride in people. When they see the buzz around something and international tourists visiting their town then they tend to really embrace it. And that’s been the case I believe this week.”
For those not fortunate enough to catch the action in the flesh, there has been wall-to-wall television coverage around the world and on the BBC here. Figures released show that more than million viewers watched the mountain biking on day three while the men’s road race at its peak had 800,000 pairs of eyes glued to developments.
“The BBC ratings have been terrific, with more than two million viewers watching the action unfold in the UK alone over the first four days,” added Lindblade. “The men’s road race had the highest cycling viewing numbers on the BBC for more than four years. Across everything – in person, on television and on our social media channels - the engagement has been great.”
It all comes to a head today. At the Emirates Arena they will be handing out the final medals in both cycleball and artistic cycling but the main event is undoubtedly the women’s elite road race that starts at noon on the shores of Loch Lomond before winding its way through west and east Dunbartonshire and the Stirling area before arriving in Glasgow for the finale.
The men’s race was packed with incident – a protest briefly halted the race while eventual champion Mathieu van der Poel nipped in to use someone’s loo and survived a crash in the Glasgow rain to get back on his bike and win – and the expectation is there will be drama aplenty too in the women’s equivalent.
“I want to see Glasgow and Scotland really get behind the elite women’s race so we can bring the curtain down on these championships and showcase to the world that we’re really great at delivering major events here,” added Lindblade. “The support we had from the Scottish public for the men’s race – from Edinburgh all the way to Glasgow – made me and the team feel really proud that our ‘power of the bike’ message is getting through. I’m sure it will be a similar story for the women.”
