March 25/09 12:22 pm - 2009 Track World Championships: Women's IP report. photos and results

Posted by Editoress on 03/25/09
 

Photos

The 2009 Track World Championships opened this afternoon with the qualifying round of the Women's 3000m Individual Pursuit. Canada's Tara Whitten finished seventh with a time of 3:38.962, not good enough to make the medal round, but a strong improvement over last year's 16th place.

In the absence of defending world and Olympic champion Rebecca Romero of Great Britain, her team mate (and Olympic silver medalist) Wendy Houvenaghel was the favourite, and did not disappoint, qualifying first with a time of 3:29.491 . New Zealand's Alison Shanks, fourth at the Olympics, was second in qualifying at 3:31.063, and will meet Houvenaghel in the gold medal final tonight.

Vilija Sereikaite (Lithuania) qualified third and will race against fourth place qualifier Joanna Rowsell (Great Britain) for the bronze medal.

Whitten, who has won bronze and silver medals in World Cup competition in only her second season of international competition, wasn't completely satisfied with her ride.

"It was an average ride for me, not a great one, so I'm not ecstatic. In training I thought I would be a little bit faster today, but this is what I had in my legs. My goal was a new Canadian record [which Whitten currently holds at 3:36.998], and I was hoping to get below 3:36 here."

"Still, seventh in the world is a big improvement over last year, and I know that there are still a lot of areas to work on. Thanks to my coach Eric van den Eynde, I'm improving a lot."