August 7/24 17:58 pm - Gold for Australia & USA on Day 3 at the Track

Posted by Editoress on 08/7/24
 

The team events concluded on Wednesday, Day 3 of tracking cycling at the Olympics, with the United States taking their first-ever title in the women's Team Pursuit, and Australia winning the men's Team Pursuit. The Canadian squads finished eighth for the women and seventh for the men. The men's Sprint competition and women's Keirin also got underway, with both Kelsey Mitchell and Lauriane Genest advancing to tomorrow's quarterfinals in the Keirin. Unfortunately, neither Tyler Rorke nor Nick Wammes made it past the first round repechage in the Sprint.

Both Mitchell and Genest had to qualify for the Keirin quarterfinals through the repechage, after finishing fourth in their respective first round heats. However, they did that easily, both winning their repechage heats.

"I feel good," said Genest about her repechage. "I think this morning I was a little too stressed in the qualifying round and took it too seriously. After the [first] race was done, the stress kind of went away and I was able to focus on what was coming. I think I had one of the easiest repechages, and I used that to my advantage. I knew that I had the legs, and I could feel that I was getting speed in the last straight. I tried to make it as easy as possible; I knew the girls were going to wait on me or that it was going to come from the back, and it did come from the back. I was definitely in a bigger gear than the girl from New Zealand that came from the back, so it took me a little longer to get on top of it, but that's why I was coming with so much more speed at the end. So I'm excited for tomorrow."

"It's the Olympics, so every race is going to be competitive," said Mitchell. "Tactically, I didn't race super well in the first round, I hit a wall and couldn't get over it. I had a lot of energy going into the next one, and I thought 'I'm going to make it hurt for everyone', and I was able to cross the line first, so I'm happy. Now I just need to rest up and get ready for tomorrow."

In the men's Sprint, Rorke qualified 20th with a time of 9.603 seconds (a personal best), just ahead of Wammes (9.612). Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands), fresh off winning the Team Sprint, was the fastest qualifier, in a world record time of 9.088 seconds, clocking an astounding 79.225 kilometres per hour - the nine second barrier is getting very close to being broken.

Rorke went up against Jack Carlin (Great Britain) and Wammes against Leigh Hoffman (Australia) in their first rides, and then both rode in the same three-up repechage against Frenchman Rayan Helal. Rorke tried to go long, but was caught by Helal in the final 100 metres.

"The [personal best] felt good, very good," admitted Rorke. "Last time I came anywhere close to 9.7 was two years ago, so it feels good to be down into some fast numbers." Rorke also talked about his early attack in the repechage: "Franck [Durivaux, national coach] was talking about going early, and I saw Rayan and Nick pull off a bit, and I had a bit of height on the track, so I thought, 'I might as well go now'. Unfortunately, I ran out of gas before the finish line."

"It's been a phenomenal experience," said Rorke. "I haven't been to a race like this before. A lot of people before I left were asking if it felt special, and before I got here, it just felt like I was prepping for another project. And then I got here, and it was just a different experience. It definitely has shown me how other people peak for this event, and how much I need to be able to push to keep up with them. And hopefully beat them."

The Canadian team of Dylan Bibic, Michael Foley, Mathias Guillemette and Carson Mattern (one of the youngest in the field) finished eighth in Round 1, putting them up against the seventh fastest team, Belgium, for the final round. The Belgians went out extremely hard, but Canada stuck to its pace, and pulled them back as their rival began to fall apart. Dylan Bibic swung off after a strong pull at the front - partially to save his energy for tomorrow's Omnium - and the Belgian team completely collapsed, losing two riders.

Australia, having set a world record in qualifying, was the favourite, but the British squad rode neck-and-neck with them until the final lap, when Ethan Hayter slipped off his saddle and almost crashed into his teammates during a transition. Italy took bronze ahead of Denmark.

Michael Foley spoke about how the team changed up its strategy overnight, "we got together and talked about what we were doing was really good, but it wasn't fast enough, so we needed to try something new to get back at Belgium. So we talked about it at 9:00 pm, 9:40 pm last night, and we came up with a completely new strategy. I was in P4 [position 4], and I haven't started at the back ever. Carson wouldn't do a long turn, after having done a long turn all through camp; we just completely switched it up. It didn't completely work, we blew up a little bit, but it wasn't a horrible idea. We won the bike race, so I'm happy about that, but we weren't here for seventh necessarily. We've still got some work to do, and hopefully we can come back stronger."

"It was a hard race," agreed Mattern. "We all try to be adaptable; we are bike racers and we need to be able to adapt to new strategies. But, as Mike said, we came up with this at 10:00 pm at night, and then a few hours later we were throwing it down at the Olympic Games. This is a sport that you have to get absolutely right, so doing a completely unpracticed strategy is pretty unheard of. It didn't work for us today, but there are a lot more races to come in our future."

The Canadian women's Team Pursuit squad of Erin Attwell, Ariane Bonhomme, Maggie Coles-Lyster and Sarah van Dam rode for seventh against Australia in the final. The Canadians rode the first half slower than their rivals, but were faster through the final 2000 metres; unfortunately, not quick enough to overcome their earlier time disadvantage. The gold medal final was between the USA and New Zealand, with the Americans opening up a sizeable lead in the first half, and managing to just barely hold on for the win. Great Britain, sorely missing injured Katie Archibald, took the bronze medal over Italy.

"It's been a rollercoaster, for sure," admitted Attwell, one of the riders to get sick and have to go on antibiotics before racing began, "but there's no one else that I would rather have shared this experience with than my teammates here. They've made it the best experience we could have had.

"It's been a good couple of years with ups and downs, but it's made the team stronger," said van Dam. "It's not the result we had hoped for; we came in with the hopes of fighting for a medal. I really, truly think that if we had had a smooth run into the Games that we would have been fighting for that medal. But with the cards we were dealt, we came out today and yesterday with what we had, and that's really all we can do."

Both Attwell and van Dam came out of the same Victoria-based Tripleshot club program. "It's pretty crazy to think about where we started when we were 11; Erin and I started riding together with Tripleshot, and now we are here at the Olympic Games representing Canada. It's an unreal feeling."

"It hit me when the selections were first announced," said Attwell, "and throughout this whole journey, to have basically 50% of the team not only come from the same city, but the same club is really, really special. So it feels like a different experience to be able to share it with Sarah, because we have so much common ground."

Results

Photos

World Records Fall as Track Cycling Begins in Paris

Olympic Games: Records Continue to Fall at the Track on Day 2