Olympic Track Cycling: Day 3

Brits on fire again for morning session of day 3 as Kenny and Clancy rule the show for Great Britain & Record Breaking Spree Ends in Gold for the Golden Girls

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 SUMMARY

Dani King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell were, like the men last night, on another level to their rivals as they continued a trend that must come to an end sometime, that of breaking the World Record each time they race.

For the sixth time in a row, the riders coached by Paul Manning, broke their own World record on their way to beating the team from the USA and winning another Gold medal in a winning run for the team like the one in Beijing.

Only one medal was decided in the second session of the day and that went to the Great Britain women while in the other events held, the Men’s Sprint and Omnium, it was clear that more Gold medals are on the cards. In the Men’s Sprint, Jason Kenny cruised through the qualifying and 1/8th final in scintillating form and has a good chance of going one better than the Silver he got in Beijing behind Sir Chris Hoy.

In the Men’s Omnium, Ed Clancy blitzed the field in the first of six rounds in the Men’s Omnium and after two good performances in the bunch races in rounds two and three, he sits in fourth place with two of his favoured events to come and a possible result in the final bunch race, the Scratch race.

Women’s Team Pursuit

Making its debut in the Olympics, the Women’s Team Pursuit continues to be dominated by the British team. Over the years, the British girls have dominated the World Championships, winning it when it was introduced in 2008 at Manchester with the only ‘blip’ on their record being 2010 when they were second to Australia.

It was in 2011 that the team that won Gold tonight in London started to come together and whilst Wendy Houvenaghel (World Champion in 2011) has been part of the team right through the build up, there was no sentiment in the team to give her a shot at a medal as the GB team stuck with Trott, King and Rowsell throughout the three rounds.

The day could not have been more perfect for the girls. From the World Record in their second round ride to seal their place in the Gold medal final, to the singing of Hey Jude by 6,000 spectators whilst they got their medals, including the Paul McCartney seen on TV waving his Union Jack every bit as enthusiastically as the people around him.

After a World record in qualifying the day before, the British trio upped the pace in the second round to take the World Record into the ‘14’s for the first time. They were finally starting to reach that glass ceiling that athletes find during their career at various times and they were racing on the edge as for the fifth time in a row, they broke the World Record. The job though wasn’t done and in the final only an hour or so later, they faced the USA with the prize being the Gold medal.

The team were not expected to lose because of the dominate way they had ridden throughout the Games. That said, I have seen teams crash out of medal winning positions in the Olympic Games before and nothing could be taken for granted. Joanna Rowsell, fittingly from London, was in the start gate for the team and she took them up to speed and out of the reach of the team from USA within a lap of the start.

The opening kilo saw the girls a second clear and the gap just got bigger and bigger, the crowd got louder and louder and the GB trio on the track got faster and faster as they chased down the girls from the USA. You didn’t need a watch to see who was the faster team on the track as Trott, Rowsell and King looked so much quicker than the team from the USA.

Not only had the coaches made some subtle changes to the way they rode the event with more even turns from each of the riders, the adrenalin of the chase saw the British girls go so close to taking the world record into the ‘13’s finishing with a time of 3:14.051.

The job done, the emotion exploded on and off the track as they all went looking for their families. King hugged her boyfriend Matt Rowe, himself a former rider for GB, while Trott and Rowsell went to celebrate with their families. As Mark Cavendish and Geraint Thomas, among many stars in the stands applauded their effort, the girls faces said it all; they were Olympic champions and weren’t they happy!

Reactions:
Laura Trott: “It’s mad. I can’t believe it, I feel so emotional right now. It was my dream, my dream since I was eight and we did it.”

On six world records in six rides, Laura says “pretty amazing eh. I don’t think we expected it. I think we expected it in one of the rounds but not every single ride we did.”

On the Women’s Omnium to come, Laura says “I can’t think about the Omnium now, but it’ll be nice to win another Gold.”

Dani King: “We’re like sisters, and I couldn’t have done without them. They are absolutely incredible. I can’t believe we have done it. It is amazing. I can’t describe how I feel right now, I’m just ecstatic.”

Joanna Rowsell: “I could tell we were winning by the noise of the crowd and there was no need for Paul (Manning) to walk the line because they were shouting so loud it spurred us on for that last kilometre. We could see them (USA) in the last few laps but it wasn’t ours until the gun went because you never know what is going to happen.”

“I believed in us from the start and knew we could do it. The World Record was a bonus because it was all about this Gold medal”.

FINALS

1. Great Britain 3:14.051
(1:08.418, 2:11.279)

2. United States 3:19.727
(1:09.198, 2:13.632)

3. Canada 3:17.915
4. Australia 3:18.096
5. New Zealand 3:19.351
6. Netherlands 3:23.256
7. Belarus 3:20.245
8. Germany 3:20.824

ROUND 1

Heat 1
Netherlands 3:20.013
Germany 3:21.086

Heat 2
New Zealand 3:18.514
Belarus 3:21.942

Heat 3
United States 3:16.853
Australia 3:16.935

Heat 4
Great Britain 3:14.682 (World Record)
Canada 3:17.454

 

MEN’S SPRINT

This blue ribbon event of the sprint events, the Men’s Match Sprint, kicked off on the morning of day 3 and giving the crowd that was there something to shout about was Jason Kenny with an Olympic record in the flying 200 metre time trial.

The triple World Junior champion from 2006 is competing in his second Olympic Games and after his blistering second lap in the Team Sprint, and Silver behind Hoy in Beijing, King Kenny was in awesome form in qualifying for the Sprint.

His 9.713 was two tenths quicker than the legend Gregory Bauge. Jason Kenny is the rider who denied Sir Chris Hoy a spot in the sprint and after he blitzed the track and all his rivals, it was no surprise the selectors made such an audacious move.

Tweeting, Madame Zelder, ie,the man Kenny took the sport from in the sprint, Sir Chris Hoy, predicted a 9.7 and he was spot on giving indications that perhaps this isn’t the first time Kenny has gone this quick in the run up to the Games.

Kenny had a bye in the 1/16th round as did Bauge due to a no show from Volikakis who’s slow qualifying time perhaps reveals all is not well with the Greek rider.

1/8th Finals
It was a short days work for Jason Kenny who had qualified fastest in the morning and then cruised through the 1/8th final against Bernard Esterhuizen of South Africa. Kenny had drawn the inside position on the track and was held up on the line by the GB Sprint Coach Iain Dyer.

Required to lead for the first half a lap, Kenny quickly let the South African take the lead and they used a lot of the track before Kenny launched his sprint from the top of the track, blasting past Esterhuizen as they got the bell and while the South African did his best to come round him on the home straight, Kenny was far to alert to let that happen and made another step towards a possible Gold medal.

1/8th Final

Heat 1
Jason Kenny (Great Britain) defeated Bernard Esterhuizen of South Africa

Heat 2
Gregory Bauge (France) blitzed Seiichiro NAKAGAWA of Japan

Heat 3
Shane Perkins (Australia) was awarded the win after Hersony CANELON (Venezuela) was relegated.

Heat 4
Njisane Nicholas PHILLIP (Trinidad and Tobago) defeated Robert FORSTEMANN (Germany)

9-12 Final
9. Seiichiro NAKAGAWA Japan 10.950 +
10. Pavel KELEMEN Czech Republic
11. Bernard ESTERHUIZEN South Africa
12. Hersony CANELON Venezuela

Men’s Omnium
Clancy! Quite possibly the nicest bloke I have ever met on a bike, this athlete from Huddersfield is just amazing. Half a second over 250 metres is quite something and that’s the margin between the 2008/2012 Olympic Champion from the Team Pursuit Clancy and his rivals in the first round of the event most think should never have been made part of the Olympics.

If other governing sports bodies ruined their Olympic programmes in the way the IOC/UCI have done in Cycling, it wouldn’t be just the cycling at the Olympic Games that has been crucified. But, the Omnium is what we are left after blue ribbon events such as the Madison, Individual Pursuit and Points races have been cruelly cut from the programme.

No matter for GB though, after the first round, Ed Clancy, a former World Champion in this event, was leading Kiwi Archbold and Aussie O’Shea and whilst there are some events Clancy is perhaps not as strong in, the Points race for example, he is such an animal in the timed events and so quick in the Devil, fingers are crossed he can go all the way in this event.

Footnote: GB Under 23 Sprint coach Jon Norfolk came up with this outstanding fact about Clancy’s rider – “Ed’s full lap (250 metres) had within it a Flying 200 of 10.04. That would have placed him 4th in Men’s sprint qualifying!” That is just bloody amazing Ed.

Points Race
The Points race is not an event that Ed Clancy enjoys with a sprint every ten laps and just to spice it up, the roadmen in the field will then try and take laps when their rivals are breathing through their ears. The hammer went down from the word go and for a while it looked as though riders were content to battle it out for the sprints. Ideal for Clancy.

After sitting out a few sprints, Clancy soon got involved and took five points but no sooner had he got himself on the scorecard, Roger Kluge went solo and that signalled a chase and a group of seven eventually coming together and taking a lap on the rest. Whilst not ideal as the GB rider had missed the move, Clancy went and won another five points to put himself clearly in eighth place but it got worse as more riders escaped and took a lap, again without Clancy.

Those 20 points for the lap were hurting Clancy’s position in the race and whilst he took another three, his final position of 11th saw him drop down the rankings with the very physical Devil take the Hindmost to come an hour or so later.

Points Race
1 Roger KLUGE Germany 79
2 Lasse NormanHANSEN Denmark 59
3 Eloy TERUEL ROVIRA Spain 55
4 Bryan COQUARD France 51
5 Elia VIVIANI Italy 47
6 Martyn IRVINE Ireland 47
7 Walter Fernando PEREZ Argentina 26
8 Glenn O’SHEA Australia 25
9 Gijs van HOECKE Belgium 23
10 Hosung CHO Korea 20
11 Ed CLANCY Great Britain 18
12 Bobby LEA United States of America 8
13 Zachary BELL Canada 4
14 Shane ARCHBOLD New Zealand 3
15 Ki HoCHOIHong Kong 3
16 Juan EstebanARANGO CARVAJAL Colombia -18
17 Carlos Daniel LINAREZ ZAMBRANO Venezuela -18
18 Luis MANSILLA Chile -40

Elimination Race

This controversial addition to the programme sees the riders battling every few laps to avoid being the last across the line and therefore eliminated. Lights on the bikes are there to tell the riders they are out but this didn’t seem to work as intended and riders who apparently were eliminated seemed to carry on in the race.

The key was to avoid getting boxed in and Clancy tried different tactics including hanging back in clear air and then sprinting past unsuspecting rivals to stay in the race. This was costly in energy used but also highly entertaining as well as nail biting for the British fans.

There were still times when he nearly came unstuck but those narrow escapes were enough to keep him in the race until with five left, gassed, the white flag came out and he surrended to the inevitable and dropped to the safety of the track apron. Fifth was a good result in this event where several times he was being lent on and feeling the elbows of others in his ribs.

Clancy survived that war on the track and whilst the Frenchman Bryan Coquard won and took over the top spot on the overall table, Clancy now finds himself in fourth overall with two timed events to come. A medal is certainly within his grasp and if he can do a good job in the Scratch, a Gold is still on the menu for the Yorkshire rider.

At the Worlds this year, Clancy won the final time trial whereas Coquard was fifth, whilst in the Pursuit, Clancy was third and Coquard 15th. Clancy also finished in front of the Frenchman in the Scratch race so the race for Gold is far from a done deal…

Elimination Race
1 Bryan COQUARD France +
2 Elia VIVIANI Italy +
3 Glenn O’SHEA Australia +
4 Walter FernandoPEREZ Argentina +
5 Ed CLANCY Great Britain
6 Shane ARCHBOLD New Zealand
7 KLUGE Roger Germany
8 Bobby LEA United States of America
9 Hosung CHO Republic of Korea
10 Zachary BELL Canada
11 Ki Ho CHOI Hong Kong
12 Lasse Norman HANSEN Denmark
13 Juan Esteban ARANGO CARVAJAL Colombia
14 Carlos Daniel LINAREZ ZAMBRANO Venezuela
15 Martyn IRVINE Ireland
16 Luis MANSILLA Chile
17 Eloy TERUEL ROVIRA Spain
18 Gijs van HOECKE Belgium

OVERALL (after 3 rounds)
1 COQUARD Bryan 10
2 VIVIANI Elia 13
3 O’SHEA Glenn 14
4 CLANCY Edward 17
5 HANSEN Lasse Norman 18
6 KLUGE Roger 19
7 ARCHBOLD Shane 23
8 PEREZ Walter Fernando 28
9 BELL Zachary 30
10 IRVINE Martyn 30
11 LEA Bobby 30
12 CHO Hosung 31
13 TERUEL ROVIRA Eloy 34
14 ARANGO CARVAJAL Juan Esteban 38
15 van HOECKE Gijs 40
16 CHOI Ki Ho 40
17 LINAREZ ZAMBRANO Carlos Daniel 46
18 MANSILLA Luis 52

Other Results

MEN’S SPRINT

Flying 200 Metres
1 Jason Kenny, Great Britain 9.713
2 Gregory Bauge, France 9.952
3 Shane Perkins, Australia 9.987
4 Robert Forstemann, Germany 10.072
5 Denis Dmitriev, Russian 10.088
6 Hersony Canelon ,Venezuela 10.123
7 Seiichiro Nakagawa, Japan 10.144
8 Miao Zhang, China 10.155
9 Edward Dawkins, New Zealand10.201
10 Njisane Nicholas Phillip, Trinidad And Tobago 10.202
11 Azizulhasni Awang, Malaysia 10.226
12 Jimmy Watkins, United States Of America 10.247
13 Pavel Kelemen, Czech Republic 10.311
14 Damian Zielinski, Poland 10.323
15 Bernard Esterhuizen, South Africa 10.35
16 Uria Mazquiaran Hodei, Spain 10.604
17 Zafeirios Volikakis, Greece 10.663

1/6th Finals
Heat 1
Jason Kenny, Gb, Straight Through To 1/8th Finals

Heat 2
Gregory Bauge, France, Straight Through To 1/8th Finals (Walkover)

Heat 3
Shane Perkins (Australia) Defeated Hodei Mazquiaran Uria (Spain)

Heat 4
Robert Forstemann (Germany) Defeated Bernard Esterhuizen (South Africa)
Heat 5
Denis Dmitriev (Russia) Defeated Damian Zielinski (Poland)

Heat 6
Pavel Kelemen (Czech Republic) Defeated Hersony Canelon (Venezuela)

Heat 7
Jimmy Watkins (Usa) Defeated Seiichiro Nakagawa (Japan)

Heat 8
Azizulhasni Awang (Malaysia) Defeated Miao Zhang (China)

Heat 9
Njisane Nicholas Phillip (Trinidad And Tobago) Defeated Edward Dawkins (New Zealand)

Men’s Omnium

Flying 250 Metre Time Trial
1 Ed Clancy, Great Britain 12.556
2 Shane Archbold, New Zealand 13.112
3 Glenn O’Shea, Australia 13.222
4 Lasse Norman Hansen ,Denmark 13.236
5 Bryan Coquard, France 13.347
6 Elia Viviani Italy 13.359
7 Zachary Bell Canada 13.406
8 Juan Esteban Arango Carvajal Colombia 13.469
9 Martyn Irvine, Ireland 13.504
10 Bobby Lea, USA 13.559
11 Roger Kluge, Germany 13.571
12 Hosung Cho, Korea 13.614
13 Gijs Van Hoecke, Belgium 13.633
14 Rovira Eloy Teruel, Spain 13.655
15 Ki Ho Choi, Hong Kong 13.659
16 Carlos Daniel Linarez Zambrano Venezuela 13.863
17 Walter Fernando Perez Argentina 14.036
18 Luis Mansilla Chile 14.27

 

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