August 18/08 6:53 am - Beijing Olympics: Track Day 4 photos, report and full results
Posted by Editoress on 08/18/08
Beijing Olympics
Photos from the fourth day of racing at the Laoshan Velodrome.
Women's Points race
Team Pursuit Final
Men's Sprint Quarter finals
Women's Sprint Quarter finals
Another day, another world record and another gold for Great Britain on the track - in some ways, the most remarkable outcome of the day was that the Brits were finally shut out of the medals in one event.
Great Britain, as expected, won the Team Pursuit title against Denmark, while New Zealand beat their perennial rivals Australia to take the bronze. Great Britain also erased the world record they had set just yesterday, smashing it to smithereens by nearly two seconds with a time of 3:53.314 .
The Danes kept it close for the first couple of laps, but then the British juggernaut steadily picked up time every lap, looking so smooth that their speed was deceptive. By the 3000 metre mark, the Danish team was struggling to avoid being caught, which they did manage to do.
"It was so smooth," said Geraint Thomas. "We were just chasing them and once we had them in our sight, we knew that we had it. We had set up for a 3:56 pace, but we went out hard from the start, and having them [Denmark] to chase helped us go for the record."
The other Final contested was the Women's Points Race, and Marianne Vos made up for her relatively poor showing in the road race by taking the gold medal - the first for her country in cycling at these Games.
After a flurry of early attacks, Vos took advantage of a momentary lull in the action to make a solo attack. She caught the field completely by surprise, and quickly took a lap, the only rider to do so. This put her firmly in the driver's seat, as she then monitored any other efforts to take a lap and chased them down.
The battle for silver and bronze was much more intense, with five riders still in contention at the final sprint. Cuba's Yoanka Gonzalez took the last sprint to grab the silver medal, while Leire Olaberria (Spain) and Maria Luisa Calle (Colombia) tied on points for third. Olaberria won the bronze after finishing second in the final sprint. there was a crash near the halfway mark, which took down Sarah Hammer (USA), Satomi Wadami (Japan) and Trine Schmidt (Denmark). Schmidt was able to rejoin the race within the requiste five laps, but the other two had to drop out - Hammer was subsequently found to have a broken clavicle.
Canada's Gina Grain had a solid ninth place finish, equally her best ever Worlds result (2006). Grain was active throughout the race, scoring points in three sprints in the second half, and attempting to get away from the field in the closing laps with Vos.
"Overall I feel really good about my race, because I was able to be in the sprints, some breaks, and handle the speed. I tried to be conservative for the first half, and then get more aggressive in the second half. I was able to go with a few breaks, but they just didn't work out. That's the way it goes, you roll the dice."
"I'm ranking it as a success; to finish top-10 in my first Olympics. A lot of these girls are in the their second Games, and have way more experience than I do. At least a quarter of the field is on their second Olympics, and I beat them. I feel like I'm nowhere near my potential. I had higher expectations, of maybe a top-8, but that requires some luck in this event."
The men's and women's sprints also continued today, with the quarter finals. Each event is down to four riders who will go for the medals tomorrow. in both the men's and the women's races, the remaining contenders each went through in two straight rides.
For the men, Chris Hoy (Great Britain) will go against Max Levy (Germany), while his team mate Jason Kenny is up against France's Mickael Bourgain. Potentially, we could see another all British final for gold.
On the women's side, number one seeded Victoria Pendleton (Great Britain) rides against Willy Kanis (Netherlands) and Anna Meares (Australia) faces Guo Shuang (China).
| Women's Points Race | |
| Final | |
| 1 Marianne Vos (Netherlands) | 30 pts |
| 2 Yoanka Gonzalez (Cuba) | 18 |
| 3 Leire Olaberria (Spain) | 13 |
| 4 Maria Luisa Calle (Colombia) | 13 |
| 5 Lesya Kalitovska (Ukraine) | 10 |
| 6 Katherine Bates (Australia) | 10 |
| 7 Pascale Jeuland (France) | 8 |
| 8 Olga Slyusareva (Russia) | 8 |
| 9 Gina Grain (Canada) | 6 |
| 10 Yan Li (China) | 6 |
| 11 Rebecca Romero (Great Britain) | 3 |
| 12 Svetlana Pauliukaite (Lithuania) | 2 |
| 13 Lada Kozlikova (Czech Republic) | 2 |
| 14 Vera Carrara (Italy) | 1 |
| 15 Wan Yiu Wong (Hong Kong) | 0 |
| 16 Evelyn Garcia (El Salvador) | 0 |
| 17 Catherine Cheatley (New Zealand) | 0 |
| 18 Trine Schmidt (Denmark) | 0 |
| 19 Minhye Lee (Korea) | -40 |
| DNF Sarah Hammer (United States) | |
| DNF Satomi Wadami (Japan) | |
| DNF Verena Jooss (Germany) |
| Men's Team Pursuit | |
| Final | |
| Ride for gold and silver | |
| 1 Great Britain (Ed Clancy/Paul Manning/Geraint Thomas/Bradley Wiggins) | 3:53.314* |
| 2 Denmark (Michael Moerkoev/Casper Joergensen/Jens-Erik Madsen/Alex Nicki Rasmussen) | 4:00.040 |
| Ride for bronze | |
| 3 New Zealand (Sam Bewley/Hayden Roulston/Marc Ryan/Jesse Sergent) | 3:57.776 |
| 4 Australia (Jack Bobridge/Graeme Brown/Mark Jamieson/Luke Roberts) | 3:59.006 |
| Women's Sprint | ||
| 1/4 finals | ||
| Heat 1 | Race 1 | Race 2 |
| 1 Victoria Pendleton (Great Britain) | 11.839 | 11.672 |
| 2 Simona Krupeckaite (Lithuania) | ||
| Heat 2 | ||
| 1 Shuang Guo (China) | 11.501 | 11.627 |
| 2 Natallia Tsylinskaya (Belarus) | ||
| Heat 3 | ||
| 1 Anna Meares (Australia) | 11.716 | 12.108 |
| 2 Clara Sanchez (France) | ||
| Heat 4 | ||
| 1 Willy Kanis (Netherlands) | 11.944 | 11.767 |
| 2 Jennie Reed (United States) |
Winner of each heat qualify to semifinals. Losers go to race for 5th-8th place
| Men's Sprint | ||
| 1/4 finals | ||
| Heat 1 | Race 1 | Race 2 |
| 1 Chris Hoy (Great Britain) | 10.82 | 10.302 |
| 2 Mohd Azizulhasni Awang (Malaysia) | ||
| Heat 2 | ||
| 1 Jason Kenny (Great Britain) | 10.546 | 10.595 |
| 2 Kevin Sireau (France) | ||
| Heat 3 | ||
| 1 Maximilian Levy (Germany) | 10.689 | 10.66 |
| 2 Teun Mulder (Netherlands) | ||
| Heat 4 | ||
| 1 Mickael Bourgain (France) | 10.524 | 10.463 |
| 2 Theo Bos (Netherlands) |
Winner of each heat qualify to semifinals. Losers go to race for 5th-8th place
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