2003 UCI Track Cycling World Championships
The 93 UCI Track World Championships were held from 30 July to 3 August 2003 at the "Hanns -Martin- Schleyer-Halle " in Stuttgart. The program included 15 disciplines. A total of 15 000 spectators watched the competitions in the hall in which it was almost unbearably hot in the summer, which made some athletes hard to create. At the start were 301 athletes from 38 countries.
Originally, the World Championships in Shenzhen, China should take place, but were postponed at short notice because of the SARS epidemic in Southeast Asia to Stuttgart.
The German squad included the athletes:
- Women: Christina Becker, Kathrin Friday, Katrin Meinke, Christin Muche, Susan Panzer, Anke Wichmann
- Men: Christian Bach, Robert Bartko, Daniel Becke, Robert Bengsch, Carsten Bergemann, Jan van Eijden, Jens Fiedler, Guido Fulst, Matthias John, Sven Kraus, Sören Lausberg, Jens Lehmann, Andreas Müller, Stefan Nimke, Sebastian Siedler, René Wolff
The German Cycling Federation expected in the run-up to eight medals, but have won only three. It also came in the team pursuit to a scandal: The German train of four did not appear to qualify, since the driver Lehmann, Becke, settlers and Bach had refused to start together with Bartko and Fulst. Background was the upset of Lehmann about to have been nominated for the individual pursuit. Instead his Bartko had been nominated, who had not qualified according to Lehmann's view. World Champion in the Team Pursuit was the new world record time of 3:57,280 minutes by train of four from Australia.
The most successful athletes in the world championship for men was the Swiss Franco Marvulli with two gold medals, one in the scratch as well as in a two - team driving with Bruno Risi. For the scratch competition Marvulli had only been nominated short notice after a training accident of his team-mates Alexander Aeschbach.
In the women -dominated two Russian women: Svetlana Grankowskaja and Olga Sljussarewa won two gold medals.
Gold also won the Austrian driver Franz poke, which was not only the first Austrian to win a world championship gold medal in track cycling, but also the first World Cup gold medal for Austria ever in an Olympic cycling discipline.