A YOUNG cycle-ball player from Frome who attended the recent Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Cycling World Championships in Glasgow hopes that the sport becomes more popular so the British team can become more competitive.
Cycle-ball, which is a sport that combines football with bikes, has a long history of competition across central Europe but is rare in this country. The British team finished last at this year’s event.
16-year-old Nicolaas Galbreath, who is a student at Frome College and was first reserve for the British team, says that he and his teammates learned a lot from the competition, but he wants to see more people take up the sport so it can continue to grow in the UK.
“As we don’t have any teams in the UK to play against, we spend a lot of times learning about tactics and team play whilst watching other teams,” he explained.
“I really hope this sport becomes more popular because it’s really fun and technically challenging – it is also played inside which is perfect for British weather. It would be great if more people became interested so that we could set up a league here in Britain and be more internationally competitive.
“I have really enjoyed going to Germany for training camps and going to Belgium for competitions, but if we had more teams to play against here, I think we would do much better in international competitions.
“The event itself was fun and I really enjoyed the atmosphere and I got to see the very best at the sport play. I was not needed in the real games but I played a lot in the warm ups helping my team, and occasionally others, warm up.”
Nicolaas was also joined at the UCI World Championships with his brother Sebastiaan as well as fellow Frome resident and first team player Mark Percival. Nicolaas says that he is now back training in Bath and will be on the look-out for some smaller competitions to gain experience at before next year’s trip to the world championships.
If you are interested in signing up you can find out more by visiting https://www.avidsport.co.uk/team
