The final day of the UEC European Championships witnessed the first running of a Women’s Madison at a senior championships following a successful trial at the Junior Worlds this summer – as well as the Men’s Madison, Men’s Keirin and the conclusion of the Women’s Sprint.
Women’s Sprint
1/2 Final
Day 5
Anastasiia Voinova of Russia continued to live up to her billing as favourite for the Women’s Sprint competition – cruising past Nicky Degrendele of Belgium. Simona Krupeckaite – who saw off Tania Calvo of Spain in the other Semi – has looked strong all week, though and certainly wouldn’t be a push over in the final.
Results
1 VOINOVA Anastasiia RUSSIA **
2 DEGRENDELE Nicky BELGIUM
1 KRUPECKAITE Simona LITHUANIA **
2 CALVO BARBERO Tania SPAIN
Men’s Keirin
1st round
More frantic antics from Roy van den Berg of the Netherlands livened up the opening heat of the Men’s Keirin although, ultimately, he missed out on qualification. Sergii Omelechenko of Azerbaijan took the first heat with Sprint Bronze medallist Andriy Vynukorov taking the second.
Joe Truman of Great Britain took Heat 3 but his compatriot Jack Carlin had to progress via the Repechages losing out to Tomas Babek of the Czech Republic in Heat 4. Patryk Rajkowski of Poland and Marc Jurczyk of Germany were the other heat winners.
Zafeiris Volikakis’ foray into endurance racing wasn’t quite as successful as his brother’s, but he did make the Semi-Finals of the Keirin, winning the first of the Repechages. Volikakis’ team mate Sotirios Bretas, Juan Peralta of Spain, Robin Wagner of the Czech Republic, Carlin and Charly Conord of France completed the line-up.
Results
Heat 1
1 OMELCHENKO Sergii AZERBAIJAN
2 LENDELIS Vasilijus LITHUANIA
3 CONORD Charly FRANCE
4 VAN DEN BERG Roy NETHERLANDS
5 VERAMCHUK Yauhen BELARUS
Heat 2
1 VYNOKUROV Andriy UKRAINE
2 PERALTA GASCON Juan SPAIN
3 BRETAS Sotirios GREECE
4 EDELIN Benjamin FRANCE
5 CECI Davide ITALY
Heat 3
1 TRUMAN Joseph GREAT BRITAIN
2 ALIAGA CHIVITE Sergio SPAIN
3 MINCHEV Miroslav BULGARIA
4 CECI Francesco ITALY
5 DUBCHENKO Alexander RUSSIA
Heat 4
1 BABEK Tomas CZECH REPUBLIC
2 CARLIN Jack GREAT BRITAIN
3 SHURSHIN Nikita RUSSIA
4 MULLEN Eoin IRELAND
5 ASKURAVA Davidi GEORGIA
Heat 5
1 RAJKOWSKI Patryk POLAND
2 SZALONTAY Sandor HUNGARY
3 NOVIK Uladzislau BELARUS
4 WAGNER Robin CZECH REPUBLIC
5 DE PAUW Ayrton BELGIUM
DSQ LIPA Mateusz POLAND
Heat 6
1 JURCZYK Marc GERMANY
2 WACHTER Tobias GERMANY
3 VOLIKAKIS Zafeiris GREECE
4 JONAUSKAS Svajunas LITHUANIA
5 VENNEMAN Robin BELGIUM
6 CESAR Carlo NETHERLANDS
Repechages
Heat 1
1 VOLIKAKIS Zafeiris GREECE
2 EDELIN Benjamin FRANCE
3 LENDELIS Vasilijus LITHUANIA
4 DE PAUW Ayrton BELGIUM
Heat 2
1 PERALTA GASCON Juan SPAIN
2 NOVIK Uladzislau BELARUS
3 VENNEMAN Robin BELGIUM
4 VAN DEN BERG Roy NETHERLANDS
Heat 3
1 WAGNER Robin CZECH REPUBLIC
2 SHURSHIN Nikita RUSSIA
3 CECI Davide ITALY
4 ALIAGA CHIVITE Sergio SPAIN
Heat 4
1 CARLIN Jack GREAT BRITAIN
2 JONAUSKAS Svajunas LITHUANIA
3 VERAMCHUK Yauhen BELARUS
4 MINCHEV Miroslav BULGARIA
Heat 5
1 BRETAS Sotirios GREECE
2 CECI Francesco ITALY
3 CESAR Carlo NETHERLANDS
4 SZALONTAY Sandor HUNGARY
5 ASKURAVA Davidi GEORGIA
Heat 6
1 CONORD Charly FRANCE
2 DUBCHENKO Alexander RUSSIA
3 WACHTER Tobias GERMANY
4 MULLEN Eoin IRELAND
Women’s Madison
Final
Day 5
By universal agreement, the first major senior Women’s Madison was a great success. There are a few missed changes but no major incidents and the top half of the field, in particular, looked like they’d been doing it all their lives.
Jolien D’Hoore and Lotte Kopecky for Belgium dominated what was also the first of the new format, points-every-ten-laps, twenty-points-for-a-lap-gained, double-points-in-the-final-sprint Madisons – taking 36 points to win comfortably.
And those double points allowed Great Britain duo of Emily Nelson and Emily Kay who won the final sprint to jump from fourth to the Silver medal spot, ten points behind the winners – and four ahead of Kirsten Wild and Nina Kessler of the Netherlands.
Result
1 BELGIUM (DHOORE Jolien, KOPECKY Lotte) 36
2 GREAT BRITAIN (KAY Emily, NELSON Emily) 26
3 NETHERLANDS (KESSLER Nina, WILD Kirsten) 22
4 FRANCE (BERTHON Laurie, DEMAY Coralie) 17
5 RUSSIA (CHEKINA Aleksandra, IAKOVENKO Anastasiia) 12
6 ITALY (BARBIERI Rachele, CONFALONIERI MariaGiulia) 12
Women’s Sprint
Finals
It’s seven years since Krupeckaite won her first World Title – and four since she won the European Team Sprint and Keirin titles at her home track in Panevėžys – but the 33 year old doesn’t show any signs of slowing down and she finally added a European Sprint title to her collection in a couple of close races against Voinova. Calvo took the Bronze.
Results
GOLD KRUPECKAITE Simona LITHUANIA **
SILVER VOINOVA Anastasiia RUSSIA
BRONZE CALVO BARBERO Tania SPAIN **
4 DEGRENDELE Nicky BELGIUM
Men’s Keirin
Semi Finals
Day 5
Babek took the first spot in the Keirin finals – heading home Rajkowski and Concord in the first heat, while Vynokurov took the second heat from Truman and Jurczyk.
Results
Heat 1
1 BABEK Tomas CZECH REPUBLIC
2 RAJKOWSKI Patryk POLAND
3 CONORD Charly FRANCE
4 OMELCHENKO Sergii AZERBAJAN
5 WAGNER Robin CZECH REPUBLIC
6 PERALTA GASCON Juan SPAIN
Heat 2
1 VYNOKUROV Andriy UKRAINE
2 TRUMAN Joseph GREAT BRITAIN
3 JURCZYK Marc GERMANY
4 BRETAS Sotirios GREECE
5 CARLIN Jack GREAT BRITAIN
6 VOLIKAKIS Zafeiris GREECE
Men’s Keirin
Finals
Vynokurov has looked strong all week – and the Keirin has been no exception – but the big Ukrainian had no answer to Babek’s sheer speed as the Czech rider held him – and France’s Charlie Conord – off to claim the Gold. Jack Carlin of Great Britain won the minor final.
Results
GOLD BABEK Tomas CZECH REPUBLIC
SILVER VYNOKUROV Andriy UKRAINE
BRONZE CONORD Charly FRANCE
4 JURCZYK Marc GERMANY
5 RAJKOWSKI Patryk POLAND
6TRUMAN Joseph GREAT BRITAIN
7 CARLIN Jack GREAT BRITAIN
8 WAGNER Robin CZECH REPUBLIC
9 OMELCHENKO Sergii AZERBAJAN
10 PERALTA GASCON Juan SPAIN
11 VOLIKAKIS Zafeiris GREECE
12 BRETAS Sotirios GREECE
Men’s Madison
Final – 200 laps
When the new Madison regulations were announced – bringing the race in line with Points Race -there was a fear that it would take away the emphasis on gaining a lap which has always been the defining characteristic of the event. Madisons have been won without a single sprint point – and often with just a handful.
And the first major race of the new era saw Albert Torres and Sebastian Mora win by taking two laps and scoring a handful of points – they did win a Sprint (now they’re every ten laps it’s much harder to take a lap without there being a sprint in the middle of the effort) and picked up three third places, but the bulk of their 51 points came from ‘traditional Madison tactics.
It might have been very different, though – Benjamin Thomas and Morgan Kneisky of France – experienced Madison riders both – exploited the new system to the full. Amazingly, they scored in 15 of the 20 sprints – winning five of them. They headed towards the final gallop – now with double points – just six behind the Spaniards. Second place would give them the win.
Possibly exhausted from all that sprinting, they finished sixth – one place behind the Spanish – and had to settle for Silver, but it does show that it’s perfectly possible to win either way.
They almost lost the Silver, too. Kenny de Ketele and Moreno de Pauw of Belgium took second in the final sprint to take them within a point. If they’d caught Italy on the Final Lap..
Results
GOLD SPAIN (TORRES BARCELO Albert, MORA VEDRI) ESP 51
SILVER FRANCE (THOMAS Benjamin, KNEISKY Morgan) FRA 45
BRONZE BELGIUM (DE PAUW Moreno, DE KETELE Kenny) BEL 44
4 AUSTRIA (MULLER Andreas, GRAF Andreas) AUT 37
5 ITALY (LAMON Francesco, CONSONNI Simone) ITA 20
6 DENMARK (VON FOLSACH Casper, MADSEN Frederik Rodenberg) DEN 19
7 POLAND (STANISZEWSKI Daniel, PSZCZOLARSKI Wojciech) POL 19
8 SWITZERLAND (PERIZZOLO Loic, MARGUET) SUI 6
9 NETHERLANDS (STROETINGA Wim, PIETERS Roy) NED 5
10 CZECH REPUBLIC (HACECKY Vojtech, BLAHA Martin) CZE 4
