A thrilling end to Day 1 of the Manchester round of the Track Cycling World Cup Series saw Great Britain pick up a Gold, two Silvers and a Bronze, with Australia taking two Golds and France the other. Kevin Sireau won a grippng Men’s Sprint Final, Jo Rowsell, Wendy Houvenaghel and Sarah Storey the took Women’s Team Pursuit Finals, Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch continued their domination the Women’s Team Sprint and Rohan Dennis took the Men’s Individual. And there were Men’s Omnium Points and Elimination races…
Pictures and full results from Day 1
trackcycling’s coverage of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics is sponsored by SL Carbons – The Fabric of your success
trackcycling’s coverage of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics is sponsored by SL Carbons – The Fabric of your success
Men’s Sprint
The Men’s Sprint competition reached its conclusion this evening – starting with the Semi Finals, which contained the only ‘shock’ of the day. In the first, Kévin Sireau despatched Maximilian Levy in two – which, despite the German’s recent progress, was always on the cards. Jason Kenny, too, has shown great form of late and so his victory over Sir Chris Hoy wasn’t a complete surprise, but it wasn’t what most of the sell out crowd expected – and even after Kenny took the first race, many people expected Hoy to draw level in the second. He couldn’t, and Kenny was through to the Final.
And Kenny’s good form didn’t desert him in the opening match of the Finals, either, edging out Sireau on the line to take a 1-0 lead. The French rider evened it up with a strong ride in the second, though and cruised past the young Brit in the run to the line in the decider. Hoy took the Bronze with two comfortable victories against Levy.
Finals
GOLD Kévin SIREAU FRA
SILVER Jason KENNY SKY
BRONZE Chris HOY SKY
4 LEVY Maximilian GER
Semi Finals
Heat 1
1 Kévin SIREAU FRA
2 Maximilian LEVY GER
Heat 2
1 Jason KENNY SKY
2 Chris HOY SKY
Men’s Sprint World Cup Final Standings
1 Kévin SIREAU COF 42
2 Tsubasa KITATSURU JPN 24
3 Jason KENNY GBR 20
4 Chris HOY GBR 18
5 Teun MULDER NED 13
Men’s Omnium
A fiercely competitive Omnium Points race finished tied on points, with the victory going to Shane Archbold of New Zealand whose last lap finishing position lifted him above long time leader Rafal Ratajczyk of Poland. There was drama long before that as Long Jin of the Max Success Pro Cycling team punctured high on the banking in turn 1 and took out Tim Veldt on his way down the banking. Both rejoined, but neither was in any fit state to finish the race.
The race was
effectively decided when a group led by Australian Michael Freiberg early on – and might have finished differently if they hadn’t made the junction just before a Points lap – handing the points to a chase group that was off the front of the main pack
Round 2 – 30km Points Race
1 Shane ARCHBOLD NZL 13
2 Rafal RATAJCZYK POL 13
3 Elia VIVIANI ITA 11
4 HoSung CHO KOR 11
5 Nicky COCQUYT BEL 10
6 Michael FREIBERG AUS 9
7 Unai ELORRIAGA ZUBIAUR ESP 9
8 Ioannis TAMOURIDIS GRE 6
9 Cristopher MANSILLA ALMONACID CHI 5
10 Ho Ting KWOK HKG 5
Aided by a new stem-mounted tell-tale light which notifies riders of their demise, the Omnium Elimination race was a thrilling affair that had the crowd on their feet – not least because Ben Swift missed out on the win by the width of a deep section rim… Swift rode an excellent race – having to make gaps for himself a couple of times in the closing stages – and just missed out to Viviani in the final sprint.
Round 3 – Elimination Race
1 Elia VIVIANI ITA
2 Ben SWIFT GBR
3 Rafal RATAJCZYK POL
4 Shane ARCHBOLD NZL
5 Bryan COQUARD FRA
6 Michael FREIBERG AUS
7 Walter Fernando PEREZ ARG
8 Alois KANKOVSKY CZE
9 Nicky COCQUYT BEL
10 Bobby LEA USA
Standings After Day 1
1 Shane ARCHBOLD NZL 6
2 Elia VIVIANI ITA 9
3 Rafal RATAJCZYK POL 16
4 Bryan COQUARD FRA 21
5 HoSung CHO KOR 24
6 Ben SWIFT GBR 29
7 Bobby LEA USA 30
8 Michael FREIBERG AUS 30
9 Unai ELORRIAGA ZUBIAUR ESP 31
10 Alois KANKOVSKY CZE 33
Women’s Team Pursuit
Predictions of a close race between Great Britain and New Zealand in the Final of the Women’s Omnium as Houvenaghel, Rowsell and Storey rode away from Ellis, Nielsen and Shanks to take a comfortable win. Three tenths up after a kilometre, they’d stretched the lead to half a second by the 2000 metre mark were half a second clear. The Kiwi challenge faded further in the closing stages and the British trio eased away to finish over a second up. Indeed, with a slightly tidier finish, they’d have been in with a shout of the World Record…
GOLD Great Britain (Wendy HOUVENAGHEL, Joanna ROWSELL, STOREY Sarah) 3:19.757
SILVER New Zealand (Lauren ELLIS, Jaime NIELSEN, Alison SHANKS) 3:20.828
BRONZE OUCH PRO CYCLING (Sarah HAMMER, Dotsie BAUSCH, Jennie REED) 3:23.136
4 Netherlands (Kirsten WILD, Vera KOEDOODER, Ellen VAN DIJK) 3:23.804
Women’s Team Pursuit World Cup Final Standings
1 NEW ZEALAND NZL 42
2 AUSTRALIA AUS 30
3 CANADA CAN 23
4 GERMANY GER 21
5 GREAT BRITAIN GBR 20
Women’s Team Sprint
Shanaze Reade’s much hyped return to the track alongside Victoria Pendleton in the Team Sprint showed just how long the former World Champion has been away from the track. Her opening lap was only 8th fastest of the session and a 3rd fastest 2nd lap from Pendleton wasn’t enough to break the 34 second barrier – and 34.001 couldn’t lift their qualifying position higher than 8th. By contrast, team mates Becky James and Jess Varnish stormed around in 33.581 seconds to book a placee in the Bronze medal ride-off.
Jinjie Gong and Lin Junhong of China – World Cup leaders going in to this round – topped the qualifying times with a 33.140, just two tenths ahead of Australia’s Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch.
The Australian pair have dominated the Women’s Team in recent years and they came back strongly in the final. The Chinese pair almost matched their qualifying time with a 33.173 but Meares and McCulloch clocked a world class 33.017 to take the Gold. Sandie Clair and Clara Sanchez broke British hearts in the 3rd-4th Final, knocking two tenths of their qualifying time to take the Bronze.
Finals
GOLD Australia (Anna MEARES, Kaarle MCCULLOCH) 33.017
SILVER China (Jinjie GONG, Shuang GUO) 33.173
BRONZE France (Clara SANCHEZ, Sandie CLAIR) 33.347
4 Great Britain (Rebecca Angharad JAMES, Jessica VARNISH) 33.651
Women’s Team Sprint World Cup Final Standings
1 CHINA CHN 39
2 GREAT BRITAIN GBR 29
3 FRANCE FRA 24
4 NETHERLANDS NED 22
5 GERMANY GER 22
Men’s Individual 4000m Pursuit
Another crowd pleasing Final saw Geraint Thomas lift himself after a steady start and storm into a commanding lead in the Individual Pursuit Final. Behind for the first two laps, Thomas edged past his opponent, Rohan Dennis of Australia, at the end of lap 3.
Thomas was on fire and the crowd was on their feet. By the kilometre mark he was almost half a second up; by the halfway mark he was a second and a half up. Not long after, it started to look as though the Welshman may have gone off to fast.
By the three kilometre point the lead was now to nine tenths of a second. It looked like Thomas would hang on, but the momentum was definitely with the Australian.
Six tenths, two tenths… with 250 metres to go Dennis was finally ahead by three tenths and Thomas was fading fast. At the gun the Australian had taken the Gold by almost a second.
There were people who were hoping for a World Record on the back of Jack Bobridge’s performance in the recent Australian National Championships. They didn’t get it, but they did get one of the best World Cup Individual Pursuit Finals for years.
In the Bronze medal ride-off, Marc Ryan of New Zealand comfortably saw off the challenge of Jenning Huizenga, winning by almost three seconds.
GOLD Rohan DENNIS AUS 4:15.614
SILVER Geraint THOMAS GBR 4:16.477
BRONZE Marc RYAN NZL 4:24.855
4 Jenning HUIZENGA NED 4:27.154
Men’s Individual Pursuit World Cup Final Standings
1 Rohan DENNIS AUS 12
2 Geraint THOMAS GBR 10
3 Marc RYAN NZL 8
4 Jenning HUIZENGA NED 7
5 Sergi ESCOBAR ROURE ESP 6
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Pictures and full results from Day 1
