BRUCE Croall goes into the Scottish Track Championships this weekend buoyed by double gold and a new world record in recent days.
The 35-year-old arrived home from the World Masters Track Championships in Manchester with two rainbow jerseys in his possession, having claimed victory in the men's 35-39 years 1km time trial and sprint earlier this week. He set a world best of 1min 3.252sec in the kilo, erasing the mark by American Anton Quist which had stood since 2004.
Croall will compete tonight in the keirin at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow in a field expected to include his City of Edinburgh RC team-mate Callum Skinner, the 2012 British national sprint champion, and Chris Pritchard, who competed at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Skinner and Croall will join John Paul, the former junior world and European champion, in the team sprint on Sunday.
Having begun his cycling career at 14 as a cross-country mountain biker before moving into road and track disciplines, Croall has amassed an impressive palmares including 27 Scottish, 19 British and four European championship medals.
Last month he took bronze in the team sprint at the British Track Championships in Manchester alongside Paul and Jonathan Biggin (Glasgow Life Track Cycling Team).
But it is the men's 1km time trial - an event in which last year he broke Sir Chris Hoy's longstanding record at Meadowbank Velodrome - on which Croall has set his sights to earn a spot in the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
"The qualification standard for the kilo is 1min 2.889sec and I'm currently sitting at 1min 3.252sec, so only around four tenths of a second off," he said. "It's not bad going considering I'm an amateur rather than a full-time or professional rider. The goal
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