Day 2 of the World Track Championships featured the Men’s Individual Pursuit, Keirin and Scratch and Women’s Team Pursuit and Team Sprint.
The Men’s Pursuit the final saw Taylor Phinney defend his title against Jesse Sergent of New Zealand after Sergent had been the quicker of the two by a second in qualifying. In the Women’s Team Pursuit Great Britain couldn’t match Australia in the final – with New Zealand setting a new World Record in the Bronze medal ride-off against the USA. Australia also took the Women’s Team Sprint with Alex Rasmussen of Denmark delighting the home crowd by winning the Men’s Scratch race.
Chris Hoy ended the evening with his 10th World title, taking the Keirin on the line from Azizulhasni Awang.
The Women’s Team Pursuit was one of the most closely contested in World Championship history, with almost nothing separating the top five teams in qualifying and three of them with a very real shot at the Gold.
There were few surprises in the afternoon session, with Sarah Hammer’s USA showingly strongly early on, only to be over hauled by a very slick New Zealand squad led by Alison Shanks. The fastest two squads, though, were the ones most people expected – the Great Britain team of Lizzy Armitstead, Wendy Houvenaghel and Jo Rowsell qualifying two tenths behind the Australian trio of Ashlee Ankudinoff, Sarah Kent and Josephine Tomic.
The Bronze medal ride showed the difference between a well drilled, World Class trio of evenly matched riders and a squad dominated by a single superstar with the Kiwi team of Shanks, Rushlee Buchanan and Lauren Ellis proving far too strong for the USA squad of Dotsie Bausch, Lauren Tamayo and Sarah Hammer. The Kiwis had only qualified two tenths faster than the Americans, but in the Final they rode away from them, finishing 3 seconds up and breaking the World Record in the process.
The Aussies were on World Record pace for most of the race – with the British girls ahead of New Zealands pace early on, albeit trailing the Australians. The times look close – just half a second in it at the end – but in truth the Australians were never troubled. Their pace dropped off at the end, enabling their antipodean neighbours to hold on the World Record, but the rainbow jerseys went to Australia, again.
Qualifying
1 AUS Australia 3:23.161
Ashlee ANKUDINOFF, Sarah KENT, Josephine TOMIC
2 GBR Great Britain 3:23.369
Elizabeth ARMITSTEAD, Wendy HOUVENAGHEL, Joanna ROWSELL
3 NZL New Zealand 3:24.405
Rushlee BUCHANAN, Lauren ELLIS, Alison SHANKS
4 USA United States 3:24.661
Dotsie BAUSCH, Sarah HAMMER, Lauren TAMAYO
Vera KOEDOODER, Amy PIETERS, Ellen VAN DIJK
6 CAN Canada 3:26.132
Laura BROWN, Stephanie ROORDA, Tara WHITTEN
7 GER Germany 3:27.236
Charlotte BECKER, Lisa BRENNAUER, Verena JOOS
8 UKR Ukraine 3:27.662
Yelizaveta BOCHKAROVA, Svitlana GALYUK, Lesya KALITOVSKA
9 BEL Belgium 3:27.690
Jessie DAAMS, Jolien D’HOORE, Kelly DRUYTS
10 CHN China 3:28.194
Fan JIANG, Wenwen JIANG, Jing LIANG
11 RUS Russia 3:28.644
Tatiana ANTOSHINA, Anastasia CHULKOVA, Victoria KONDEL
12 POL Poland 3:32.035
Edyta JASINSKA, Katarzyna PAWLOWSKA, Malgorzata WOJTYRA
13 FRA France 3:32.199
Sophie CREUX, Fiona DUTRIAUX, Pascale JEULAND
14 ITA Italy 3:34.329
Monia BACCAILLE, Tatiana GUDERZO, Marta TAGLIAFERRO
LTU Lithuania DSQ
Svetlana PAULIUKAITE, Vilija SEREIKAITE, Ausrine TREBAITE
SILVER Great Britain 3:22.287
BRONZE
New Zealand 3:21.552 WR4 United States 3:24.571
Men’s Keirin
Chris Hoy’s route to his tenth World Championship was far from straightforward and the margin of his victory in the final was less then a bike length, but it was a commanding performance after the disappointment of yesterday’s Team Sprint. Team mate Matt Crampton had started the charge, qualifying comfortably for the second round ahead of eventual Bronze medalist Maximilian Levy. They were joined by Francois Pervis of France and hard charging 19 year old New Zealander Sam Webster, who rode shoulder to shoulder with Pervis for most of the final lap of their heat. A trade mark wheelie from Malaysia’s Azizulhasni Awang put him through, just ahead of Teun Mulder of the Netherlands before Hoy took his place on the start line.
It was a keiring crash at the Copenhagen round of last year’s World Cup that kept Hoy out of the 2009 Worlds and he was down again within 50 metres of the start. Josiah Ng of Malaysia was disqualified for chopping across Hoy and the race was restarted. Finding himself at the back, Hoy was boxed in twice as Shane Perkins of Australia built up a 6 bike length lead. Hoy came storming through on the final bend to take a comfortable win from the Australian.
The 2nd round was less eventful for Hoy – winning from the front from Awang and Webster – but team mate Crampton got caught up in a scrap for the lead and pulled up wth 100m to go. Levy took the second heat from Mulder and Pervis.
After a disqualification in the Minor Final – the Japanese rider Asai passing the Derny before it had pulled off – Crampton stormed ahead to win and work of some of the disappointment from the 2nd round.
In the final, defending champion Levy – despatched so comfortably by Crampton in the earlier round – took Bronze ahead of Mulder but the race, the Gold Medal and the 10th rainbow jersey went to Hoy, pushing for the line ahead of Awang, whose wheelie antics looked slightly odd half a length off the lead.
1st Round
1 Matthew CRAMPTON GBR
2 Maximilian LEVY GER
3 NIBLETT Jason AUS
4 Francesco CECI ITA
5 Charlie CONORD FRA
6 Zafeirios VOLIKAKIS GRE
2 Sam WEBSTER NZL
3 Denis SPICKA CZE
4 Kota ASAI JPN
5 Carsten BERGEMANN GER
6 Michael THOMSON RSA
7 Kasper Lindholm JESSEN DEN 1 Azizulhasni AWANG MAS
2 Teun MULDER NED
3 Christos VOLIKAKIS GRE
4 Michael SEIDENBECHER GER
5 Simon VAN VELTHOOVEN NZL
6 Adam PTACNIK CZE
7 Kazunari WATANABE JPN 1 Chris HOY GBR
2 Shane PERKINS AUS
3 Roy VAN DEN BERG NED
4 Andrii VYNOKUROV UKR
5 Travis SMITH CAN
6 Saifei BAO CHN
DSQ 269 Josiah NG ONN LAM MAS
1st Round Repechages
1 Simon VAN VELTHOOVEN NZL
2 Denis SPICKA CZE
3 Andrii VYNOKUROV UKR
4 Michael THOMSON RSA
1 Jason NIBLETT AUS
2 Travis SMITH CAN
3 Francesco CECI ITA
4 Kasper Lindholm JESSEN DEN
REL Adam PTACNIK CZE
1 Michael SEIDENBECHER GER
2 Christos VOLIKAKIS GRE
3 Kazunari WATANABE JPN
4 Charlie CONORD FRA
5 Saifei BAO CHN
1 Kota ASAI JPN
2 Carsten BERGEMANN GER
3 Zafeirios VOLIKAKIS GRE
4 Roy VAN DEN BERG NED
2nd Round
1 Chris HOY GBR
2 Azizulhasni AWANG MAS
3 WEBSTER Sam NZL
4 Shane PERKINS AUS
5 SEIDENBECHER Michael GER
6 ASAI Kota JPN
1 LEVY Maximilian GER
2 Teun MULDER NED
3 François PERVIS FRA
4 Simon VAN VELTHOOVEN NZL
5 Jason NIBLETT AUS
6 Matthew CRAMPTON GBR
Finals
GOLD HOY Chris GBR
SILVER AWANG Azizulhasni MAS
BRONZE LEVY Maximilian GER
4 MULDER Teun NED
5 PERVIS François FRA
6 WEBSTER Sam NZL
7 CRAMPTON Matthew GBR
8 SEIDENBECHER Michael GER
9 VAN VELTHOOVEN Simon NZL
10 PERKINS Shane AUS
11 NIBLETT Jason AUS
DSQ 253 ASAI Kota JPN
Men’s Individual Pursuit
The Men’s Individual Pursuit Final looked like it would be an epic struggle between two young team mates – albeit team mates for the same road team, not the same country. Defending Champion Taylor Phinney came up against Jesse Sergent in the final qualifying heat and it was Sergent who came away with the bragging rights, at least for a couple of hours. Phinney’s performance – and composure – was still impressive given the frantic scenes in the track centre after Kazakh rider Alexey Kolessov was disqualified for his aero bars not being parallel to the ground. Team personnel worked frantically on his bike to ensure he was legal and it could easily have upset his preparations.
Phinney is determined to break Chris Boardman’s 4km pursuit record and his perfomance in tonight’s final suggested that he will – and that he was more focused on the time than on his opponent. Sergent’s earlier effort – clocking 4:15.988 – had obviously taken a lot out of him and he was two seconds off the pace. Phinney, too, was slightly slower – half a second
off his earlier performance, but his 4:16.600 was comfortably enough to add another rainbow jersey to his growing collection.
Final
GOLD Taylor PHINNEY USA 4:16.600
SILVER Jesse SERGENT NZL 4:18.459
BRONZE Jack BOBRIDGE AUS 4:18.066
4 Alexander SEROV RUS 4:21.263 55.116
1 Jesse SERGENT NZL 4:15.988
2 Taylor PHINNEY USA 4:16.102
3 Jack BOBRIDGE AUS 4:17.169
4 Alexander SEROV RUS 4:18.356
5 Rohan DENNIS AUS 4:19.292
6 Vitaliy SHCHEDOV UKR 4:20.316
7 Westley GOUGH NZL 4:20.685
8 Lasse Norman HANSEN DEN 4:22.239
9 Vitaliy POPKOV UKR 4:22.999
10 Juan Esteban ARANGO CARVAJAL COL 4:23.595
11 Patrick GRETSCH GER 4:24.224
12 David O’LOUGHLIN IRL 4:25.203
13 Artur ERSHOV RUS 4:25.352
14 Marco COLEDAN ITA 4:26.267
15 Levi HEIMANS NED 4:26.405
16 Arno VAN DER ZWET NED 4:26.677
17 Ingmar DE POORTERE BEL 4:27.400
18 Albert TORRES BARCELO ESP 4:28.327
19 Jonathan DUFRASNE BEL 4:29.416
20 King Lok CHEUNG HKG 4:32.195
21 Julien MORICE FRA 4:33.391
22 Gediminas BAGDONAS LTU 4:33.590
23 Jie WANG CHN 4:34.747
24 Xiao JIANG CHN 4:38.331
25 Magkoyras Neofytos SAKELLARIDIS GRE 4:39.081
26 Silvan DILLIER SUI 4:47.445
Alexey KOLESSOV KAZ DSQ
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Women’s Team Sprint
The Australian Gold Rush continued with Anna Meares picking up her second World Championship of the week, winning the Team Sprint with team mate Kaarle McCulloch. Australia qualified fastest with a time of 33.037 – agonisingly close to the ‘magic’ 32 second mark – with China (Jinjie Gong and Junhong Lin) second a couple of tenths back. Great Britain paired young Jess Varnish with Victoria Pendleton and the young Halesowen rider qualified for her first Senior World Championship medal ride just 3 tenths off the Australian time and a tenth of the Lithuania squad pair of Gintare Gaivayente and Simona Krupeckaite.
Having missed out on the Team Pursuit World Record, the Australians made sure they got one in the Team Sprint, blasting round in 32.923 seconds. Lithuania improved on their qualifying time to take the Bronze.
1 AUS Australia 33.037
Kaarle MCCULLOCH, Anna MEARES
2 CHN China 33.244
Jinjie GONG, Junhong LIN
3 LTU Lithuania 33.261
Gintare GAIVENYTE, Simona KRUPECKAITE
4 GBR Great Britain 33.383
Victoria PENDLETON, Jessica VARNISH
5 FRA France 33.490
Sandie CLAIR, Clara SANCHEZ
6 GER Germany 33.604
Kristina VOGEL, Miriam WELTE
7 NED Netherlands 33.672
Yvonne HIJGENAAR, Willy KANIS
8 RUS Russia 34.269
Victoria BARANOVA, Olga STRELTSOVA
9 POL Poland 35.058
Renata DABROWSKA, Aleksandra DREJGIER
10 HKG Hong Kong 35.252
Wai Sze LEE, Zhao Juan MENG
11 GRE Greece 36.008
Eleni KLAPANARA, Angeliki KOUTSONIKOLI
12 THA Thailand 37.325
Jutatip MANEEPHAN, Chanakan SRICHAUM
Final
SILVER CHN China 33.192
BRONZE
Lithuania 33.1094 Great Britain 33.593
Men’s Scratch
The home crowd had something to cheer about as Denmark’s Alex Rasmussen took the Men’s Scratch race ahead of Juan Estaban Arango of Columbia and Kazuhiro Mori of Japan. The three lapped the field and controlled the race, although there was some confusion in the bunch with Martin Blaha of the Czech Republic celebrating across the line as he finished first – of the lapped riders!
GOLD Alex RASMUSSEN DEN +1 lap
SILVER Juan Esteban ARANGO CARVAJAL COL +1 lap
BRONZE Kazuhiro MORI JPN +1 lap
4 Martin BLAHA CZE
5 Chris NEWTON GBR
6 Mykhaylo RADIONOV UKR
7 Thomas SCULLY NZL
8 Ho Ting KWOK HKG
9 Morgan KNEISKY FRA
10 Erik MOHS GER
11 Zachary BELL CAN
12 Tim MERTENS BEL
13 Magkoyras Neofytos SAKELLARIDIS GRE
14 Viktor SHMALKO RUS
15 Elia VIVIANI ITA
16 Pablo SEISDEDOS CHI
17 Lukasz BUJKO POL
18 Daniel HOLLOWAY USA
19 Travis MEYER AUS
20 Franco MARVULLI SUI
21 Werner RIEBENBAUER AUT
22 Matthew BRAMMEIER IRL
DNF Angel Dario COLLA ARG
DNF Alexey KOLESSOV KAZ
