The evening of the third day of competition at the 2015 Track Worlds saw the Women’s Sprint progress to the Quarter Final stage, the end of the first day of the Men’s Omnium competition with the Elimination Race and the Men’s Kilo, Men’s Points Race and Women’s Individual Pursuit titles decided. Plenty of local interest for the crowd with Francois Pervis still on course to repeat his Sprint triple from last year and Thomas Boudat a contender in the Omnium.
Men’s 1km Time Trial
The men’s kilo started the evening’s proceedings. All eyes would once again be on the great Francois Pervis who earned three world titles in Colombia a year previously, and was already a third of the way there in front of his home crowd with his win in the Keirin. The Keirin win has already earned Pervis cover-star status, his face dominating the front page of L’Equipe on Friday, and a win in the kilo for the world record holder would help to propel track cycling even further into mainstream French society.
Pervis faced last year’s silver medallist, Joachim Eilers of Germany, amongst the 19-man line up. Matthew Archibald, the 2014 Commonwealth bronze medallist, would also provide some threat as would British rider, Callum Skinner. Skinner, who took a clean sweep of the sprint medals at the British national championships, also defeated Eilers in the European championships.
Eugene Soule of South Africa was the first rider to kick things off and, after a false start, completed the four laps in 1:08.422 – a time which would be unlikely to stand as the fastest beyond the next heat. Kamil Kuczynski of Poland immediately bettered this in the next round with an impressive time 1:01.583.
Skinner was the sixth starter and, although his start was technically perfect, his first lap at nearly 19 seconds could potentially cost him a podium finish. Skinner accelerated throughout the race and crossed the line in 1:01.071 – sadly a time which would be unlikely to trouble the podium places.
Matthew Archibald of New Zealand, with a visibly much faster start, put in three very fast laps to go through 750m in 45.211. Despite tiring badly in the final lap, Archibald crossed the line in 1:00.470 – a new National record for the Kiwi rider and will put him in good stead for his battle with fellow New Zealand rider, Simon Van Velthooven, to make the team for the Rio 2016 Olympics. Van Velthooven finished nearly a second slower in 1:01.157.
Two poor starts for Tomas Babek of Poland cost him any chance of troubling the podium, whilst Fabian Hernando Puerta Zapata of Colombia went second behind Archibald with a time of 1:00.907. Puerta’s very slow first lap (18.874) undoubtedly cost him finishing higher up – his closing laps would turn out to be the fastest in the competition.
It was Eilers, off second to last, who predictably shook up the rankings. Riding a textbook kilometre, Eilers was the only rider in the competition to clock a sub-15 second final lap and cross the line in 1:00.294.
The stadium erupted as the final rider, Pervis, took to the track. An 18.065 first lap put him in first place immediately, and his pace failed to slow over the next two laps. Pervis stopped the clock in 1:00.207 – a tenth of a second clear of German competition and, in doing so, collected his second world title of the competition.
With the podium places decided, Skinner, who finished in seventh, and Puerta, who finished in fifth, would benefit from working on their starting laps: both riders had the potential to finish on the podium with improved first laps.
Men’s 1km Time Trial Results
GOLD Francois PERVIS (France) 1:00.207
SILVER Joachim EILERS (Germany) 1:00.294
BRONZE Matthew ARCHIBALD (New Zealand) 1:00.470
4 Quentin LAFARGUE (France) 1:00.648
5 Fabian Hernando PUERTA ZAPATA (Colombia) 1:00.907
6 Michael D’ALMEIDA (France) 1:01.036
7 Callum SKINNER (Great Britain) 1:01.071
8 Chaebin IM (Korea) 1:01.103
9 Simon VAN VELTHOOVEN (New Zealand) 1:01.157
10 Kamil KUCZYNSKI (Poland) 1:01.583
11 Eric ENGLER (Germany) 1:01.653
13 Francesco CECI (Italy) 1:01.924
14 Robin WAGNER (Czech Republic) 1:01.976
15 Anderson PARRA (Colombia) 1:02.126
16 Hugo HAAK (Netherlands) 1:02.230
17 Tomas BABEK (Czech Republic) 1:02.771
18 Lok Chun WU (Hong Kong) 1:04.043
19 Eugene SOULE (South Africa) 1:08.422
Men’s Points Race
Last year saw the unlikely candidate of Edwin Avila Vangegas of Colombia take the world championship, and the South American would be attempting to defend his title in this race. However, with talent such as Artur Ershov of Russia – who won the points race in the London round of the World Cup, Maximillian Beyer of Germany and Scott Law of Australia also riding, the competition would be fierce.
The race started and remained very compacted for the first xx laps. The fast pace of the race meant any breakaway attempts were quickly chased down, although with French rider, Thomas Benjamin taking points in four of the first five points laps, the French crowd were not complaining about the seeming lack of aggression. Lap taking was clearly going to be a big ask in this points race and, whilst a number of riders seemed keen to stay at the front of the race, none would fully commit to making a break away from the front.
A small breakaway was attempted before the fifth sprint lap, but the group was quickly sucked up with Hacecky powering through to take maximum points. Meanwhile, Raman Ramanau and Scott Law were awarded for their aggression by taking first and second in the next sprint. The pair went on to form a small breakaway but was unable to hold the bunch away. At this point, Mark Christian of Great Britain made the first real attempt at a solo break, but he clearly had no intention of holding the lead alone and was willingly swallowed up by the bunch within three laps.
Roy Teruel Rovira of Spain took maximum points in the next sprint despite the bunch chasing hard to catch him. Ershov, Beyer, Regan Gough (the world junior points champion from New Zealand) and King Lok Cheung took the opportunity of the sprint-fatigued bunch to break away. The fast pace made the group rather disordered at first, but once settled, the group worked well together to take the points in the next lap.
Law made a concerted solo getaway, but was caught by Avila, Ramanau and, much to the delight of the crowd, Thomas. Whilst they were able to mop up the points in the tenth sprint, the group were too tired to gain a lap and Beyer bridged the gap to bring the group back together.
With the riders now fatiguing, more breakaways were forming with the bunch less inclined to chase. Regan Gough of New Zealand was rewarded for his aggressive efforts with maximum points in the twelfth sprint lap, whilst a breakaway of four riders consisting of Teruel, Beyer, Law and Rogers, took the points in the 14th sprint lap with Law and Beyer powering away from the other two in the final lap to take the major points.
It was at this point that Ershov, who had been quietly racking up the points throughout, became more aggressive. With one sprint remaining, the race could be won by any of the five riders who had made the early lap gain. However, with Rogers taking the maximum points in the final sprint and none of the other lap-gained riders featured, Ershov was crowned winner by the slimmest of margins with Teruel in second and Beyer snatching third from Gough – purely on the virtue of finishing in a higher position.
Men’s Points Race (Results)
GOLD Artur ERSHOV (Russia) 31
SILVER Eloy TERUELROVIRA (Spain) 30
BRONZE Maximilian BEYER (Germany) 29
4 Regan GOUGH (New Zealand) 29
5 King Lok CHEUNG (Hong Kong) 27
6 Liam BERTAZZO (Italy) 24
7 Scott LAW (Australia) 18
8 Raman RAMANAU (Belarus) 16
9 Benjamin THOMAS (France) 16
10 Nicholas ROGERS (United Kingdom) 12
11 Kazushige KUBOKI (Japan) 10
12 Moreno DE PAUW (Belarus) 10
13 Vojtech HACECKY (Czech Republic) 6
14 Wojciech PSZCZOLARSKI (Poland) 5
15 Wim STROETINGA (Netherlands) 5
16 Alcibiades AVILAVANEGAS (Colombia) 4
17 Mark CHRISTIAN (Great Britain) 3
18 Andreas GRAF (Australia) 0
19 Vitaliy HRYNIV (Ukraine) 0
Women’s Sprint
Quarterfinals
The first of the four quarterfinals featured Tianshi Zhong and Shuang Gong, both of China. Guo led out the final lap, but such is the power of Zhong, she was able to pass her compatriot on the outside of the bend to cross the line over a quarter of a second clear in the first heat. The first race in second heat saw Elis Ligtlee of the Netherlands victorious against Simona Krupeckaite of Lithuania, although left her charge a little late to be comfortable.
Stephanie Morton of Australia pipped Jessica Varnish by less than a tyre width to take the first race between the pair, with Kristina Vogel of Germany powering past Russia’s Anastasia Voynova in the final straight to take victory in their first race.
The second races went with the same results as the first races, with all four riders through to the semifinals with only two races. Voynova was undoubtedly the unluckiest of the four defeated riders – both her races were won by Vogel by a margin less than a hundredth of a second.
Quarterfinals – Winners of each heat who progress to the semifinals
1 Tianshi ZHONG (China)
2 Elis LIGTLEE (Netherlands)
3 Stephanie MORTON (Australia)
4 Kristina VOGEL (Germany)
Minor Final
The race for 5th to 8th positions saw Guo take the victory, with Voynova once again taking second place by the smallest of margins; just a thousandth of a second in this case. Varnish finished in eighth position behind Krupeckaite.
Women’s Individual Pursuit Finals
The bronze medal final saw Joanna Rowsell of Great Britain pitted against Amy Cure of Australia. Cure had been the better of the two women in qualifying, with Rowsell looking some way off the form in last year’s championship. Cure started faster and never looked back with Rowsell visibly tiring in the middle laps of the race, straying into 18 second laps, perhaps tired after her efforts in the team pursuit the previous evening. Cure took the bronze medal in a far from spectacular time of 3:32.907, with Rowsell some way off the pace with 3:36.330.
The gold medal final featured Rebecca Wiasak of Australia and Jennifer Valente of the USA. The Australian was one of the less well known members of the Australian squad with her domestic success on the road more revered to date. Nevertheless, a silver medal in the national championships in 2015 showed her pursuiting pedigree has improved of late. Wiasak was the favourite going into the race, having triumphed against Valente by some 2.5 seconds in qualifying.
Although Valente had the better start, Wiasak then went into the lead with a 15-second and three 16-second laps. She failed to obviously tire, whereas Valente, like Rowsell in the previous race, plummeted into the 18-second lap territory by the end of the race. A buoyant Wiasak crossed the line in 3:30.305 to take the gold medal, with Valente taking silver in 3:33.867.
Women’s Individual Pursuit Finals (Results)
GOLD Rebecca WIASAK (Australia) 3:30.305
SILVER Jennifer VALENTE (United States) 3:33.867
BRONZE Amy CURE (Australia) 3:32.907
4 Joanna ROWSELL (Great Britain) 3:36.330
5 Katie ARCHIBALD (Great Britain) 3:31.276
6 Jasmin GLAESSER (Canada) 3:34.827
7 Jaime NIELSEN (New Zealand) 3:34.938
8 Marlies MEJIASGARCIA (Cuba) 3:35.570
9 Elise DELZENNE (France) 3:36.370
10 Mieke KROEGER (Germany) 3:38.522
11 Georgia Amy WILLIAMS (New Zealand) 3:38.731
12 Maria Luisa CALLE WILLIAMS (Colombia) 3:39.592
13 Eugenia BUJAK (Poland) 3:39.636
14 Lotte KOPECKY (Belgium) 3:41.044
15 Edita MAZURE VICIUTE (Lithuania) 3:42.610
16 Edyta JASINSKA (Poland) 3:44.505
17 Silvia VALSECCHI (Italy) 3:45.324
18 Gloria RODRIGUEZ SANCHEZ (Spain) 3:45.409
19 Yao PANG (Hong Kong) 3:48.609
Men’s Omnium III (Elimination Race)
The last event of the evening was the elimination race in the omnium event, and the crowd would be channelling their support on the home rider, Thomas Boudat. Great Britain’s Jonathan Dibben was out early, as was Ireland’s Martyn Irvine. Jasper De Buyst (Belgium), currently in second place, would undoubtedly be unhappy to be out seventh from last – particularly as his podium compatriots, Vivani and Gaviria, were still in the race.
Gaviria lasted until the final three and, much to the delight of the crowd, the final sprint was contested by Boudat and Vivani. In the end, Vivani was victorious but Boudat’s high finish put him in bronze medal position with De Buyst, on the same points as Boudat, demoted to fourth. Gaviria held onto his lead by eight points.
Men’s Omnium III (Elimination Race) Results
1 Elia VIVIANI (Italy)
2 Thomas BOUDAT (France)
3 Fernando GAVIRIA RENDON (Colombia)
4 Jasper DE BUYST (Belgium)
5 Viktor MANAKOV (Russia)
6 Glenn O’SHEA (Australia)
7 Aaron GATE (New Zealand)
8 Gideoni RODRIGUES MONTEIRO (Brazil)
9 Raman TSISHKOU (Belarus)
10 Lucas LISS (Germany)
