WHEN he took up cycling a little over two years ago, Jon- athan Biggin had a sole goal in mind:
to compete at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
The 25-year-old from Giffnock admits that he never gave much thought to what life afterwards might hold. It is perhaps understandable then that, following the huge high of representing Team Scotland in Glasgow last summer, he would then be caught in limbo.
That period of uncertainty came to an end last month when he was named in the Great Britain team for the final round of the 2014/15 UCI Track World Cup in Cali, Colombia. It marks his debut in the event with Biggin set to contest the team sprint alongside Matt Crampton and Lewis Oliva on Friday.
He joined Crampton and Oliva in Manchester last week for some pre-competition fine tuning and was scheduled to fly out to Cali with the rest of the GB contingent yesterday. Fellow Scot and British national points race champion Mark Stewart is also part of the squad.
A former gymnast and powerlifter, Biggin made the switch to track cycling in 2012. "I only took up cycling after finishing university," he says. "Coming into it I just wanted to get to the Games - that was the main aim. I saw it as my last chance to do sport at elite level."
He fulfilled that dream when he competed in the team sprint at Glasgow 2014 with Scottish team-mates Callum Skinner and Chris Pritchard. The trio finished in fifth.
"I committed to qualifying for the Games and competing in Glasgow but I didn't set myself a goal beyond that," he admits. "I never expected to be selected for a Track World Cup. Training is going well and I'm enjoying it, so I'm just going to see where it takes me."
Biggin did gymnastics from four until 12, competing both nationally and internationally. After a hiatus in which he dabbled in different sports, he took up powerlifting at the age of 15, going on to represent Britain at European and world level.
Four years ago he heard about the sportscotland institute of sport Gold4Glasgow initiative to take ordinary Scots and turn them into medal winners at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
It wasn't until the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome opened in the autumn of 2012, however, that Biggin was able to properly test his track cycling prowess. His progress was impressive as 20 months later he claimed a spot in the Team Scotland squad.
"Having experience in the weight training side did help when I made the move to cycling," he says. "Especially in the position I do as man one in the team sprint where you need to have explosive power. The standing start is focused on technique and a controlled explosive moment so that transfers very well from powerlifting. I think coming from a gymnastics background too helps physically as well as with the mental outlook and discipline."
Biggin, who rides for Glasgow Sprint Track Cycling Team, is the reigning Scottish national team sprint champion alongside Andrew Louis and Jonathan Mitchell. When not training, he works part-time as a sales assistant for a mobile phone company.
He comes from a sporty background. His father, Robert, played rugby for Glasgow Hutchesons' Aloysians RFC, until his early 50s. "After that he started cycling," says Biggin. "He regularly trains on the track at the velodrome. He has always been fit and involved in sport."
Biggin jnr's original plan after the Games was to find a job in the field of electrical and mechanical engineering, a subject he holds a master's degree in, but he admits he found it hard to draw a line under things when it came to cycling.
The call-up for the Track World Cup would appear to have given him renewed focus and determination. His personal best for a flying 200m is 10.7sec while his fastest time in competition for a standing start lap as man one in the team sprint is 17.9sec.
"The times the guys do at world champs are 17.4sec and under," he says. "It's wee things like getting out the gate sharp that all add up. Those are areas I could improve without necessarily having to get faster or stronger. It's all about experience. A lot of the other guys have been cycling since their teens and so it's second nature to them.
"I'm at elite level at the moment in terms of the times I'm doing but the next step up is to become among the top six in the world and achieve the times that those guys are consistently doing. From there, I would like to see if GB would give me more opportunities like they have done with Cali."
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