GB Topping Medal Table at Euros

Great Britain took their Gold Medal tally to five on Day Three of the European Championships in Pruszkow Velodrome, Poland courtsey of Jess Varnish in the Junior 500m TT and the U23 Men's Team Pursuit team

Junior Women's 500m TT

Junior Sprint Champion Victoria Baranova of Russia was the pre-event favourite for the Women's 500m TT, but despite underperforming in the Sprint it was Britain's Jess Varnish that stormed round the Pruszkow track to take the Gold medal in emphatic style

The youngster who rides for Halesowen A&CC on the British domestic scene put in a stunning 19.936s opening lap, following up with 15.428s for lap two making her the clear winner on 35.364s with Baranova 0.4s down in Silver



France's Magali Baudacci took the Bronze medal in 36.083s with Britain's other rider Corrine Hall clocking 38.628s to finish 16th

Results

1. Jess Varnish (Great Britain)
2. Victoria Baranova (Russia)
3. Magali Baudacci (France)

U23 Women's Sprint

The U23 Women's Sprint saw German Miriam Welte qualify fastest in 11.453s, followed by Ukraine's Lyubov Shulika who recorded a time of 11.543s. Britain's Anna Blyth was fourth in 11.594s

Round One saw Welte and Shulika easily make it through to the Semi-Finals with victories over Olga Streltsova and Virgine Cueff respectively

Blyth had a tough first round tie against France's Sandie Clair, but she fought through in her usual gritty Yorkshire style, making the Semis in 12.061s

Clair made it back through the Repechage to face Welte in the Semis, but the German was far too strong and made tomorrow's final in straight heats, 12.405s and 12.182s



Disappointly for Britain's Anna Blyth she was forced into the Bronze medal ride off by Shulika, who dominated both heats, winning in 12.283s and 11.942s

Day Three saw the conclusion of yesterday's U23 Women's Sprint, with Miriam Welte of Germany beating Lyubov Shuilka of the Ukraine in straight heats to take the Gold medal, Britain's Anna Blyth did the same to France's Sandie Clair in the Bronze medal ride-off take third place overall

Results

1. Miriam Welte (Germany)
2. Lyubov Shulika (Slovakia)
3. Anna Blyth (Great Britain)

Junior Men's Points Race

Their was a shock in the Junior Men's points race as all the pre-race favourites were caught out by a late attack from Ireland's Sam Bennett.

Bennett who already had notched up four points from the earlier sprints attacked off the front of the race to take sprint number eight on his way to lapping the field, giving him 29 points overall, easily enough to secure the European title from Spain's Alberto Torres Barcelo and Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland



Results

1. Sam Bennett (Ireland)
2. Alberto Torres Barcelo (Spain)
3. Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland)

U23 Men's Team Pursuit

Overwhelming favourites for the U23 Men's Team Pursuit, Great Britain qualified fastest in this morning's session with a time of 4m 08.590s. The new unit of Olympic Individual Pursuit Bronze medallist Steven Burke, Peter Kennaugh, Andy Tennant and Mark McNally looked to be holding something back in their ride, which must strike fear into their opponents for tonight's final Russia, who clocked an impressive 4m 09.730s

The evening's final saw the British quartet produce a stunning ride, that was a massive three seconds quicker than the qualification time they set earlier in the day, meaning they easily took the Gold medal in 4m 05.568s, with Russia five seconds down in 4m 10.139s

Italy took the Bronze in 4m 07.730s, beating the German team by just under two seconds

Results

1. Great Britain (Steve Burke, Peter Kennaugh, Andy Tennant, Mark McNally)
2. Russia (Evgeny Kovalev, Ivan Kovalev, Alexander Petrovskiy, Valery Valynin)
3. Italy (Omar Bertazzo, Davide Cimolai, Marco Coledan, Elia Viviani)

U23 Men's Sprint

With World Sprint Silver Medallist, representing France at the European Championships, the standard of the U23 Men's Sprint was going to be World Class, and that was demonstrated with Sireau's 200m TT time of 9.960s, 0.2s faster than his second placed team-mate Michael D'Almeida who clocked 10.127s. One wonders why Sireau couldn't manage that time a few weeks ago at the Olympics!

Britain's Matt Crampton and Dave Daniell both produced impressive 10.232s and 10.287s respectively, demonstrated just how much they have both both improved in the shadows of their Olympic medal winning team-mates

Round One saw all the seeded riders progress through in the strange format of three-up Sprints. Unfortunately for Daniell he was beaten by German Max Levy and forced into the repechage along with Spain's David Alonso Castillo. Daniell then lost out to Denis Dmitriev if Russia in the repechage, but went away from the competition with alot of praise from onlookers in Pruszkow

Matt Crampton made it through to round two with an impressive victory over Mathias Stumpf of Germany and Spain's Hodei Mazquiaran Uria in 11.073s

Round Two saw Sireau and D'Almeida easily progress through, but Crampton was beaten in 10.688s by fourth place finisher in the Olympic Sprint, Max Levy

Luckily for Crampton he was able to make it through to the Semi-Finals via the repechage to have the daunting task of facing Kevin Sireau tomorrow night

Junior Men's Sprint

In the Junior Men's Sprint, French Junior World Champion clocked an impressive 200m TT time of 10.467s to top the Qualification times ahead of his team-mate Quentin Lafargue who did a 10.485s

Britain's triple National Champion Steve Hill was third quickest in a personal best time of 10.614s, with Pete Mitchell fourth in 10.633s

Round One saw all the top four riders make it safely through to Round Two, with Hill beating Poland's Rafal Sarnecki and Sergey Litvenenko of Russia in 11.712s. Mitchell beat Spain's Juan Peralta Gascon and Georgia's David Askurava in 11.383s to face his arch-rival Hill in Round Two



As has been the story for the majority of this year's domestic sprint encounters between Hill and Mitchell, despite Hill consistently out-qualifying his team-mate in the 200m TTs, Mitchell would win the Match Sprints between the pair, and this happened again as he forced the Brooks Cycles/Velodrome.org.uk rider into the repechage in 11.409s

Hill fought back in style with a dominant performance against the two German riders Tobias Schweizer and Alexander Reinelt to make the Semis in 11.726s