
Hoy and Edgar Get Keirin One-TwoBritain's Chris Hoy and Ross Edgar have claimed the Gold and Silver Medals respectively in the Men's Keirin in Laoshan Velodrome at the Beijing Olympic Games Heat One saw Hoy easily beat German Carsten Bergemann, Toshiaki Fushimi of Japan and French powerhouse Gregory Bauge, whereas Edgar, who was fifth in the Athens Olym pic Keirin, beat Roberto Chiappa of Italy and Malaysian Josiah Ng to progress though, Chiappa was then relegated for jumping the start allowing Ng to reach the Semis In the other Heats Azizu Awang of Malaysia showed what a promising future he has in the sport when he beat Kilo World Champion and Silver Medallist in the Keirin at the Manchester Worlds, Teun Mulder to reach the Semis, relegating Shane Kelly to the repechage Heat Four provided the sell-out Laoshan Velodrome crowd with a shock as despite being off form due to lengthly injury setbacks since his Athens Olympic Sprint-Keirin double, Aussie Ryan Bayley came round Theo Bos in the closing stages to easily win and push France's Arnaud Tournant into the repechage Luckily for Great Britain both Edgar and Hoy were given separate Semi-Final draws, with Chris in Heat One using his normal style to force his way to the front and get the perfect lead out from the Derny As the motorbike left the track Hoy created a considerable gap between himself and the rest of the field, that included Shane Kelly who made it back through the repechage and Ryan Bayley. However, the opposition made no difference to Hoy as he stormed round the final 500m to make the final ahead of Kelly and Tournant with ease and surely look odds-on for his second Gold of the Beijing Games There was drama in Ross Edgar's Semi as Polish rider Kamil Kuczynski swerved to avoid Carsten Bergmann's rear wheel and in the process crashed, bringing down multiple World Champion Theo Bos After a lenghtly delay the race was restarted, with Bos and Kuczynski not allowed to race it was down to four riders to fight for three places in the final In his usual laid back style, Edgar took to the front ahead of Awang, Bergemann and Kiyofumi Nagai of Japan and made light work of reaching the final, as he simply rode to his opposition and just did what was required to win on the line from the Japanese and German In the final all eyes were on Hoy and Edgar, could they achieve that Golden one-two? the answer was yes as Edgar hit the front after barging Tournant out of the way Ross then executed the normal tactic of easing back to allow Hoy the front before holding the opposition up so that Hoy could blast off the front as soon as the Derny left the track Chris then built up a huge lead and solo'ed his way to the Olympic title, whilst Ross had to fight his way out of a the scrap for the minor placings to get Silver on the line from Japan's Kiyofumi Nagai Whereas it was a remarkable achievement by Hoy, it can not be underestimated how much Edgar contributed towards his victory and we shall never know whether if he had rode for himself he could have beaten the now, three times Olympic Gold medallist, either way it's still an incredible result for the two Scots and British Cycling, one-two in the Olympic Games, WOW Men's Keirin Final 1-6 Final 7-12 Round Two/Semi-Finals Heat 1 1 Chris Hoy (Great Britain) 2 Shane Kelly (Australia) 3 Arnaud Tournant (France) 4 Josiah Ng (Malaysia) 5 Gregory Bauge (France) 6 Ryan Bayley (Australia) Heat 2 1 Ross Edgar (Great Britain) 2 Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 3 Carsten Bergemann (Germany) 4 Mohd Azizulhasni Awang (Malaysia) DNF Theo Bos (Netherlands) DNF Kamil Kuczynski (Poland) Round One 1 HOY Chris Great Britain 1 AWANG Mohd Azizulhasni Malaysia <1 EDGAR Ross Great Britain 1 BAYLEY Ryan Australia
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