March 29/09 7:23 am - Track World Championships: Day 5: Photos, Report and full Results

Posted by Editoress on 03/29/09
 

Day 5 in Pruszkow, Poland

Canada closed out the Track Worlds with a flourish on Sunday, as Zach Bell took the silver medal in the Men's Omnium, a day after Tara Whitten had done the same in the Women's Omnium.  This is the first time since 2006 that Canada has won a Track Worlds medal, and it was in 2004 that Canada last won mulitple medals.

Women's Points Race

Men's Sprint:  Semi's and Finals

Men's Omnium: 200TT

Men's Omnium: Pursuit

Men's Omnium: Scratch

Men's Omnium: Points

Men's Omnium: Kilo

Men's Omnium

Bell won the silver medal behind Leigh Howard of Australia in the Omnium, while Tim Veldt of the Netherlands took the bronze medal.  The Omnium is a five event competition consisting of a 200 metre time trial, Scratch Race, Individual Pursuit, Points Race and 1000 metre time trial, with riders receiving points for their results in each event.

Bell finished third in the first event, fourth in the second and took sixth in the third race, to finish the morning session in second place, one point behind Robert Bartko of Germany and one point ahead of Howard.  In the afternoon events he finished second and fourth to Howard's first and third, ending up two points behind the Australian.  The result follows Bell's career high ninth place on Wednesday in the Points Race.

"It's good, it represents progress," stated Bell.  "In the other races I did, I raced well, but everything didn't go just right.  Today it all went right.  This is an event that, hopefully, I can win in the future, but for today - this is a world medal, it's a big deal."

"It was probably a little more difficult for me to do well [in the Omnium] than the Points Race; there I get a little latitude to try stuff because I'm not known, but here I wasn't an underdog.  So I had to make better decisions, and change my strategy from event to event as we went along, but it paid off.  I had a better 200 than I expected.  The Scratch and Points we knew should be my best events, but the time trials actually went well too."

"It's another step in the right direction.  I took a longer break after the Olympics than usual at the end of the season, and my build up [over the winter] has been more focussed on the road.  We did the least possible to get into the Worlds, so I have had only seven days on the track.  But I noticed that I've been getting better and better as the Worlds went on, because I came in fresher than previous years.  I'm hoping that I'm still on an upward trajectory."

Men's Sprint

Gregory Bauge (Fra) finally won the world title he has been chasing for years; always having to compete against a well stacked French squad with the likes of Arnaud Tournant, Michael Bourgain and Kevin Sireau.  With Tournant retired and Hoy absent due to injury, Bauge stepped up to take this premier title, after laying down an incredible 9.93 seconds time in the 200 metre qulifier.  But he had a battle from newcomer Azizlhas Awang of Malaysia, who took silver.

The Brits had three strong riders - Jason Kenny, Matt Crampton and Olympic silver medalist Ross Edgar - in the competition, but they were all gone by the end of the quarterfinals, with Edgar taken out by Awang.  The Malaysian has a unique way of throwing his bike at the line, generating such force that he pops a wheelie, to the delight of the crowd.  His diminutive appearance next to the majority of stocky sprinters, also makes him look to be outclassed.

Bauge and Awang met in the gold final, while Sireau went up against World Cup champion Shane Perkins (Aus) in the bronze medal final.  Sireau was riding injured, after a high speed crash in the semifinals against Bauge.  Sireau drifted up out of the sprinter lane to catch pedals with his team mate, going down at nearly 70 kilometres an hour on the final straight and sliding through the finish line on his back, ripping his skinsuit to shreds.  Bauge, miraculously, managed to stay upright, although he slid sideways across the finish line.

Sireau still managed to beat Perkins in two straight rides to take the bronze, while Bauge required three to beat Awang.  The Frenchman took the first ride by less than a tire's width, and lost the second, meaning he had lost two out of three rides against Awang in the competition (Awang beat him in the 1/8th final, forcing Bauge to go through the repechage).

In the final, Bauge resorted to his superior tactical skills, not allowing the incredibly fast Awang to dictate the pace.  Awang can go both fast and long, so Bauge slowed him down in the third deciding ride off, weaving up and down the track, and then using his short, blazing fast acceleration in the final half lap to open a gap.

Afterwards, he let out a huge scream, and danced around the track, going up to hug family members in the crowd.

Women's Points Race

World Cup champion Giorgia Bronzini gave Italy their first (and only) title at these championships with a strong performance in the Points Race.  Bronzini did not win many intermediate sprints, but she was always near the front and picking up points.  Yumari Gonzalez (Cub) took her second medal of the championships with silver, while Elizabeth Armitstead (GBr) won the bronze.

Canada's Tara Whitten, the 'Ironwomen' of the week (she also competed in the Scratch, Pursuit and Omnium), showed that she can learn rapidly by improving on her poor performance in the Omnium Points Race to score 3 points and finish 11th.

Women's Keirin

Gong Shuang gave China their only world title of the week, after the top favourites came up flat.  World champion Victoria Pendleton (GBr) had to qualify for the second round through the repechage, as did Anna Meares (Aus) and World Cup champion Willy Kanis (Ned).  Pendleton didn't make it past the second round, although both Meares and Kanis made it into the gold final.

The strong riders were clearly Guo and Clara Sanchez (Fra), who both won their respectives heats through the first two rounds.  In the final, Guo went to the front on the last lap and was just able to hold off a late charge by Sanchez to win the gold medal.  Kanis was able to sneak in for a bronze medal.

Canada's Monique Sullivan drew probably the toughest first round heat, up against Kanis, Simona Krupeckaite (Ltu) and Lisandra Guerra (Cub).  In the repechage, she again had a tough draw, against Kanis and Elisa Frisoni (Ita).  Sullivan finished third in the repechage, just one spot out of qualifying for the next round.

"My plan was to stay on Kanis' wheel [in the repechage], and it was going well until she went low and I got blocked in.  So I had to try and go high around the top, but just didn't have enough speed to get by Frisoni."

"I'm still learning a lot here, because my biggest weakness is not enough racing against this level of competition.  We do a lot of simulations, but the racing is what makes the difference."