Report: Double Gold for GB at Junior Worlds

2013_Endura_StoryBanner_April

The second night of the Junior Worlds in Glasgow belonged to Great Britain as Girl Power won two Gold medals on the boards of the Chris Hoy Velodrome

RST Cycle Clothing & Trigon Bikes

Related Link: Live TV Coverage on the Net

The evening session started with a scintillating Women’s 500m time trial where early starter Dannielle Khan (GB) set the benchmark of 35.456 and try as they may, no one could beat the time of the Solihull CC rider and Dannielle was Junior World Champion!

The sixteenth starter, European champion Melissandre Pain (FRA), recorded a new second best time, 35.926, and then Tian Beckett of Australia rode into the bronze medal position with 36.132, to complete the Women’s 500m TT medal roster: gold to Dannielle Khan (GB), silver to Melissandre Pain (Fra), and bronze to Tian Beckett (Aus).

Afterwards, Danielle said it was a dream come true and that she could not believe it even though her training had been going well.

DaniKhan_500mGold_02

 

“I don’t think it will sink in for a while, I can’t believe it” said Dannielle to british Cycling , “when you watch people like Becky James take two world titles just a few months ago – it was just so inspirational and I never thought it would happen to me. I’m so happy.”

“You get thoughts popping into your head. I’ve thought about the rainbow jersey – it’s hard not to in such a great event like this but I’ve tried to switch off and I’ve been hanging around with the other girls (GB junior endurance team), painting our nails and doing our hair, just stuff to help us switch off really and then when I get to the velodrome I switch on again.”

The night was to get better though. The Men’s Scratch race saw no GB rider competing after Germaine Burton was taken out (crashed) in the heats by another rider and failed to make the final. Vanillabikes.com riders Jack Sadler was racing though, for Ireland, and he made an early break which was brought back and in the finale, finished in the bunch.

The race was won by a brilliant move from Germany’s Manuel Porzner who waited until Navarro (Arg), Sadler (Irl), Shirmukhamedov (Uzb), Haggerty (NZl), Oliveira (Por) and Destang (Fra) had softened up the peloton with a series of punishing attacks over the first 18 laps, then made his own, decisive acceleration, darting away with 21 laps to go and taking just two blistering circuits to lap the field.

There was a medal chance in the next event, the Individual Pursuit where GB’s Matt Gibson rode for the Bronze medal. He was up against Pavel Chursin (RUS) and the two riders started neck and neck, but the Russian eased slowly ahead and eventually gained 2.7 seconds on his British rival who rode his heart out for fourth. An excellent ride for a first year Junior!

Gold and Silver went to Australia with Zachary Shaw leading his compatriot and team-mate Callum Scotson all the way to take the gold medal

GB_GIRLS_GOLD_01a

The climax of the evening was simply brilliant in the Women’s Team Pursuit. In the bronze medal ride-off, Australia, still licking their wounds from their crash-marred performance in the morning session which cost them a ride in the gold/silver final, put the Italian quartet under enormous pressure.

As the Italians fractured, Australia chased them down, overtaking them to win the race and then continuing on to set a new World Record of 4:38.246, beating the British mark set that morning.

Then, in the final race of the evening, and what a race! Riding for the gold medal, the Russian quartet set the faster time at km 1, with a lead of 0.332 seconds. Great Britain fought back, and at the halfway point led by 0.260 seconds. From then on, it was all about the World Record, conceded five minutes earlier to their great Australian rivals.

In an a unforgettable end to the evening, in front of a huge home crowd, Emily Kay, Hayley Jones, Amy Hill, Emily Nelson did it, taking the gold medal in a new World Record time of 4:35.085.

Hayley Jones, daught of Louise Jones (Commonwealth Games champion) explained: “We definitely felt a bit fatigued from this afternoon’s qualifying ride. I gave everything I got there, especially in my last turn, and I was saying to myself ‘leave it all on the track, leave it all on the track.

“We were hoping to break the world record as it was set at the Euros, but then to come back this evening and beat it again by over 2.5 seconds is just brilliant.”

It was a magical finish to a brilliant day’s racing!

Women’s Team Pursuit
1 Great Britain GBR 4:36.147 WR
(Emily Kay, Hayley Jones, Amy Hill, Emily Nelson)

2 Russia RUS 4:39.122
3 Australia AUS 4:38.108
4 ITaly ITA OVR

Women’s 500m TT
1 KHAN Dannielle GBR 35.456 +0.000
2 PAIN Melissandre FRA 35.926 +0.470
3 BECKETT Tian AUS 36.132 +0.676
4 KISELEVA Tatiana RUS 36.240 +0.784
5 HEINZE Doreen GER 36.298 +0.842

Men’s Individual Pursuit
1 SHAW Zachary AUS 3:21.1220
2 SCOTSON Callum AUS 3:24.1340
3 CHURSIN Pavel RUS 3:21.3940
4 GIBSON Matthew GBR

 

RST Cycle Clothing & Trigon Bikes

Other Results on VeloUK (including reports containing results)

Other News on VeloUK

Tags: , , ,