European Track Champs Final Day

Medals for Ethan Vernon, Laura Kenny and Elinor Barker on the final day of the European Track Championships in Bulgaria

European Track Champs Final Day

The Great Britain Cycling Team won a further two medals on the final day of competition at the UEC European Track Championships today, with Laura Kenny, Elinor Barker and Ethan Vernon all taking to the podium.

It was Ethan Vernon who won the first medal of the day for Great Britain, taking silver in the Kilo. Ethan, an endurance rider who finished fifth in yesterday’s points race, qualified in sixth fastest which put him through to the finals. Here, he backed up his ride to post a personal best time of 1:00.999 and clinch the silver medal, with Tomas Babek from Czech Republic taking the win in a time of 1:00.517.

Ethan said: “You always come into a race to win but to do a PB by five tenths of a second and go under 1:01 – I can’t really ask for much more. Especially after late last night where I was racing a 160 lap points race which was a mega tough race, so to only have a bit of recovery and then go and do that, I’m happy to get a PB and the silver medal.”

In the women’s Madison, Laura Kenny and Elinor Barker paired up for Great Britain and came away with the bronze medal. Laura and Elinor, along with the Italian team, regularly scooped the sprint points in the first half of the race, which spurred on the Russian team to gain a lap with 49 to go to put them as the current race leaders. This put the pressure on Laura and Elinor to either score well in the remaining intermediate sprints or to attack and take a lap, but unfortunately the Italian team were able to outsprint the British duo on the majority of occasions and with no remaining opportunities to take the lap, Laura and Elinor finished in the bronze medal position with 38 points. The Italian duo, having dominated the intermediate sprints, finished the race with 52 points to take the gold with Russia finishing with the silver medal just one point behind with 51 points.

In the men’s Madison, Ollie Wood and Matt Walls were unfortunate after Matt crashed with 51 laps to go which ultimately led to their withdrawal from the race. Until this point, the duo were sprinting well with some excellently timed changes and were leading the race. Matt picked up some cuts and bruises from the crash but is otherwise fine.

The addition of the silver and bronze medals on the final day of competition means that the Great Britain Cycling Team finish the competition at the top of the medal table with six gold, three silver and two bronze medals.