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Outstanding GB Win Three More Golds




Not content with their tally of six Gold medals, the Great British Track Cycling team won three more World Titles on Day Four of the Track Cycling World Championships at Manchester Velodrome. Chris Hoy successfully defended his World Keirin title with relative ease, with Victoria Pendleton doing the same for her Sprint title. Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish were extremely impressive in the Madison taking a clear victory and Britain's ninth World Title

Men's Madison

Unlike yesterday's Points Race, the Men's 50km Madison was a very lively affair with the top six teams each lapping the field.

After the Italian's and Russian's crashed, causing the latter to withdraw the attacks came flooding in with Denmark, Belgium, Switzeland and Spain each taking a lap


Cavendish slings Wiggins into action


In the meantime Britain's Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish consistently notched up points before launching a huge attack, which with the help of the roaring crowd, successfully gained then a lap


World Champions Wiggins and Cavendish Celebrate


A late attack by the German team of Roger Kluge and Olaf Pollack gained them the Silver Medal, but nobody came near the extremely impressive Wiggins and Cavendish who won Britain's seventh Gold of the championships

Results

1. Great Britain (Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins) - 19pts

2. Germany (Roger Kluge, Olaf Pollack) - 13pts

3. Denmark (Michael Morkov, Alex Rasmussen) - 11pts

Men's Keirin

World Sprint Champion Chris Hoy was yet again on form in the Keirin as he easily made it through to the Final in typical dominant style

Heat One saw Hoy defeat Japan's Toshiaki Fushimi and the Netherlands' Teun Mulder in his usual style, simply riding the field off his wheel

Heat Two saw a major shock as rising Malaysian star Azizulhasni Awang beat Aussie Shane Perkins, Arnaud Tournant and former World Champion Theo Bos to progress through to the Semi-Finals

In Heat Three, despite being ill Ross Edgar managed to come round Shane Kelly and Carsten Bergemann to make the Semis, with yesterday's silver medallist in the Sprint, Kevin Sireau, only managing fourth

Christos Volikakis of Greece was the suprise winner of heat four, beating British National Keirin Champion Matt Crampton and Olympic Champion Ryan Bayley.


Josiah Ng watches the big screen replay of his crash


As the riders crossed the finish line France's Mickael Bourgain swerved dangerously up the track causing Spain's Jose Antonio Escuredo and Malaysia's Josiah Ng to crash. Thankfully both riders only suffered minor track burns, but the Frenchman was rightly disqualified as a result of his recklessness

The repechage saw Teun Mulder, Arnaud Tournant, Carsten Bergemann and Ryan Bayley make it back into the competition

In the Semi's Mulder forced his way to the front meaning Chris Hoy had to try something different in order to win. Proving he can win another way Chris bided his time before launching a powerful attack down the home straight and holding the field off to remain unbeaten and progress through to the final with Mulder and Volikakis

The other semi saw Crampton take a fantastic victory ahead of Tournant and Fushimi


Keirin Podium, Mulder, Hoy and Volikakis


After another false start due to the starter misfiring his gun, the final got under way with Hoy again dominating to defend his World Title with relative ease, coming home ahead of Silver medallist Teun Mulder with the Bronze going to Volikakis of Greece, only the second ever medal for a Greek at the Worlds

Results

1. Chris Hoy (GBr)

2. Teun Mulder (Hol)

3. Christos Volikakis (Gre)

Women's Sprint

The Women's Sprint started with the championship's youngster rider Jess Varnish doing herself proud with an 11.756s 200m TT, which normally would have been enough for her to qualify for the Sprint rounds.

However just like the men, the women set some incredible times with defending champion Victoria Pendleton going sub 11, setting an amazing time of 10.904s to top the standings

There were no suprises in Round One as all the seeds safely made it through, the only shock was the tactics employed by French youngster Sandie Clair attacked Belarus former multiple World Champion Natallia Tsylinskaya from the gun, something rarely seen in the pro cycling arena

Tsylinskaya didn't panic and reeled Clair in with plenty of time remaining as the French woman blew with half a lap remaining

Round Two spelt disaster for the Belarussian as a very physical encounter with World Cup Champion Willy Kanis caused Natallia to catch a pedal on the banking and come down heavily on her head. She lost consciousness and had to be taken to hospital, but no serious injury occurred apart from a broken collarbone and she remains in a stable state


Kanis and Tsylinskaya collide causing the latter to crash heavily


In the Quarters Pendleton faced Dutch rider Yvonne Hijgenaar, who was extremely impressive coming back in the three-up repechage, however she was no match from the on-form World Champion who easily made it through to the semis

Shock of the round was when triple World Champion Willy Kanis lost out to Simona Krupeckaite, who used her superior endurance to beat Kanis in round one, but the commissaires disagreed with Simona moving above the sprinters line and relegated her

This didn't put off the Lithuanian as allowed Kanis to make her move before coming round on the final bend to easily draw the match level, before doing the same to reach the Semis and knock out the favourite

Jennie Reed assured herself a chance at earning a second medal for the United States at the 2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships by advancing to Saturday's semifinals of the women's sprint.

Reed was perfect through her preliminary heats on Friday to set up a head-to-head semifinal match against defending world champion Victoria Pendleton (GBR).  If Reed wins her semifinal heat, she'll advance to the gold-medal final to face either Simona Krupeckaite (LTU) or Guo Shuang (CHN). If she loses, she'll compete for the bronze medal.

In the flying 200-meter qualifying round, Reed earned the ninth seed with a mark of 11.283 seconds.  In her ensuing 1/16 final round vs. Kaarle McCollough (AUS), Reed advanced with a convincing win to earn a trip to the 1/8 finals where she faced Oksana Grishina (RUS).  After another solid race, Reed headed to the quarterfinals against the winner of Wednesday's 500-meter time trial, Lisandra Guerra Rodriguez (CUB). In the best-of-three format that begins with the quarterfinal round, Reed took two straight rides from Guerra to advance to the semifinals.

The Australian camp is awaiting confirmation from the UCI (International Cycling Union) of the final points tally but is hopeful of a start in the women's sprint at the Beijing Olympic Games despite the absence, through injury, of Anna Meares from this week's track cycling World Championships in Manchester.

Meares, who won gold in the 500 metre time trial (no longer an Olympic event) and bronze in the sprint at the Athens Olympic Games, fractured a vertebrae in her neck, tore ligaments in her shoulder and sustained bruising and grazes when she crashed during the keirin final at the Los Angeles World Cup round in January. Those injuries forced her to miss February's Copenhagen World Cup, the Australian Championships and the World Championships meaning she could not collect additional qualification points for Beijing. Instead she was forced to wait for the results of other riders to determine whether she will realise her dream of racing at a second Olympic Games.

"We did our calculations with the qualification system coming into the Championships and there were two scenarios that needed to eventuate as far as Russian rider (Svetlana) Grankowskaja and China's Zheng Lulu," said Australian Head Track Coach, Martin Barras. "Both of those scenarios have been achieved so now we're just waiting for official confirmation from the UCI next week.

"The UCI works out the points and then gives the confirmation to the National Olympic Committees of how many starting places each country has in each event for Beijing," said Barras adding that nothing is certain until the final points are tallied after Sunday, which is the cut off date for all National Federations to lodge results for events that carry qualification points.

But the results of the women's sprint competition today have certainly eased the level of anxiety for both Barras and for Meares who sat at home in Adelaide glued to her computer overnight Friday following the action.

"I've been up all night - couldn't sleep anyway so I thought I may as well sit up and watch and wait," said Meares when contacted at 3.30am Adelaide time. "'Grannie' (Svetlana Grankowskaja) rode a 10.2 (seconds in qualifying) and I thought 'she's on form and I'm in trouble' but then she got put out in the first round and I was thanking my lucky stars."




Krupeckaite beats Guo to make the final


Zheng won through to the second round but her compatriot and second seed Shuang Guo proved too strong bumping Zheng into the last chance repechage heats.

"After LuLu was beaten in the second round I thought 'great that's one race down' - and then in the repechage ... when they started riding two abreast pretty quick from the get go I thought, 'Yvonne (Hijgenaar) what are you doing?'," Meares explained. "I just wanted to close my eyes and not watch but watch at the same time.

"That last lap when Yvonne pulled out a little bit extra to hold off LuLu I felt so happy and now I can't stop shaking," said Meares who was in tears when she spoke to Barras on the phone. "It's been a really hard week, lack of sleep, stress to the point where my hair's falling out and I'm constantly in Manchester mentally thinking this is what they're doing at this minute, this is how we're preparing for this race.

"Hopefully now I can concentrate on preparing for the Olympics."

Kaarle McCulloch recovered from a shaky start in Wednesday's time trial event to knock more than two tenths of a second of her previous personal best in the flying 200m qualifying for the women's sprint. She recorded 11.417sec, the 16th fastest time, but came up against a very experienced campaigner and ninth seed, Jennie Reed of the USA, in the first round.

"I'm really pleased with the (qualifying) time but a little disappointed to not go through to the next round," said McCulloch who lead out the sprint against Reed in the hope of holding her at bay to the line. "I gave it a good try against Jennie but she just had too much power for me at the end."

"Absolutely for her it was very important (to ride a good time) because she was coming into this Championships with very good form but didn't quite achieve the level she's capable of in the time trial," said Barras. "It was a question of managing anxiety at her first major championships so we sat down and figured out ways to address that which she did she looked very good.

"She rode a great time and raced very, very well in the first round but more importantly showed she can manage herself at this level."

Saturday's Semi-Finals saw Pendleton easily progress past the mighty Jennie Reed of the USA in straight heats, with Simona Krupeckaite doing the same against China's Shuang Guo

In the Bronze Medal ride off Reed and Guo battled it out, with the American taking heat one by a clear margin.

Guo then got revenge in heat two, leading it out with her superior endurance too much for Reed

At one all Reed lead out the decider, employing the same tactics that saw her win heat one, and she managed to achieve the same result to win America's first medal of the championships

"I haven't medaled in my whole career, but once I made the top four I was like 'I can't go home without a medal'," said Reed.  "Then after losing the second ride I knew I had to go to the line wanting it the most. I just didn't want to leave anything out there." 


Jennie Reed beats Shuang Guo to take a well deserved Bronze


Saturday's bronze in the sprint was her second-ever world championship medal after winning a bronze in the keirin in 2004.  On the international circuit, Reed is primarily thought of as a stronger keirin rider. But since the keirin isn't an Olympic event, Reed is refocusing her efforts towards the sprint.

"The last few years, I was more of a keirin rider and I think I was a little bit settled on that," explained Reed, "but working with Andy Sparks made me really believe in myself in the sprint, so we decided to give it a go this year."

Reed's bronze-medal performance at the world championships less than five months away from the Beijing Games confirms her potential as a medal favorite.


Pendleton defends her title


In the final Pendleton met Krupeckaite, and despite the Lithuanian's impressive rides throughout the competition she looked intimidated by the World Team Sprint Champion, who easily dominated both heats to retain her title

Results

1. Victoria Pendleton (GBr)

2. Simona Krupeckaite (Lit)

3. Jennie Reed (USA)

Women's Points Race

Just like the Madison, the Women's Points Race was very exciting with Denmark's Trine Schmidt the early leader after winning the second sprint on her way to gaining twenty points for lapping the field


Women's Points Podium, Schmidt, Vos, Carrara


However it wasn't long before World Road and CycloX Champion Marianne Vos launched her attack to gain a lap, ahead of former World Points Champion Vera Carrara


Vos is now a World Road, CycloX and Track Champion


As the race neared it's conclusion, Schmidt attacked again in order to try and beat Vos, but the young Dutchwoman retaliated, going half a lap up to take the final sprint and her maiden World Track Title

Results

1. Marianne Vos (Hol) - 33pts

2. Trine Schmidt (Den) - 25pts

3. Vera Carrara (Ita) - 20pts









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