World Track Champs 2008

Day one, March 26 race reports and pictures from the Manchester Velodrome.

Day one Results and Quotes - Championship schedule

Men - Individual Pursuit (4000m)
This morning’s announcement that Britain’s Rob Hayles and Pim Ligthart of the Netherlands had been withdrawn from the Championships had an immediate effect with the Individual Pursuit first up and Hayles absent from the starting list.

Bradley celebrates another gold medal - Pic by Guy Swarbrick

Bradley Wiggins in full flow - Pic by Guy Swarbrick

Jenning Huizenga, Silver Medal Individual Pursuit- Pic by Guy Swarbrick

These days the pursuit is a one-shot event – the four fastest times from qualifying determine the Gold-Silver and Bronze-4th place finals line up. Reduced to one rider, Great Britain’s hopes all rested with the reigning World Champion Bradley Wiggins.

Uzbekistan’s Vadim Shaekhov kicked off the championships with the first ride of the day, alone – Hayles’ departure leaving an uneven number of riders. Shaekhov was never going to challenge the leaders, but unusually qualification wasn’t just about the last few heats. New Zealand’s Hayden Roulston topped the leader board after the 2nd heat until Alexi Markov of Russia bettered his time in heat 6. By heat 13, with just two riders left to go they were still there – just squeezing Australia’s Bradley McGee into third.

The last two to go were Jenning Huizenga of the Netherlands and Wiggins - with both men expected to set fast times. Wiggins set the best times for the first and second kilometres but was only fourth fastest in each of the remaining kilometres. His time - 4:17.024 - was quick, but Huizenga, who’d been second quickest of the day in the first kilo, fifth in the second and third with one to go pulled out a fantastic final four laps and – bettering Wiggins’ time by a second and a half - stopped the clock in 4:16.343.
Both were faster than Markov, which meant that the final would be a repeat of the last heat - and that McGee dropped out of the medal race completely.

The Bronze medal race saw Markov take out a 1 second lead over Roulston by the one kilometre mark which he had doubled with one to go. Roulston lost another half second in the closing kilo to give the Russian a comfortable win.

The final looked to be a much closer affair with Huizenga starting as favourite after his win in the heats and after 1km there was almost nothing in it – Wiggins up by a tenth. With the crowd roaring him on, though, Wiggins started to motor away – pulling out a second’s lead by the half way mark and more than 3 seconds with 1km to go. With a lap to go he could see Huizenga ahead of him at the end of the straight and the final 5 second margin was emphatic.

GOLD WIGGINS Bradley GBR 4:18.519
SILVER HUIZENGA Jenning NED 4:23.474
BRONZE MARKOV Alexei RUS 4:21.097

Women's 500m podium - Pic by Guy Swarbrick

Women – 500m Time Trial
With a field of 16 riders, the Women’s 500m Time Trial was run as a straight final with youngsters Anna Blythe and Shanaze Reade starting 10th and 13th. Reade – already a track World Champion in the Team Sprint as well as in BMX – had been tipped for a medal. Miriam Welte of Germany made the early running, covering the two laps in 34.666 seconds.

Jinjie Gong of China knocked her off the leaderboard and Sandie Clair of France took the mark down to 34.253. Blythe was half a second off Clair, but Willy Kanis of the Netherlands – one of the pre-race favourites – got as close as she could – losing out by just one thousandth of a second. Reade gave it everything, but 34.702 was only good enough for fifth with three riders still to go.

Simona Krupeckaite of Lithuania took two tenths out of Clair’s time to take the lead with just Natallia Tsylinskaya of Belarus and Cuban Lisandra Guerra Rodriguez left. Tsylinskaya’s time was two tenths shy of Reade’s, leaving Willy Kanis clinging on to Bronze by a thousandth of a second. Guerra Rodriguez wasn’t going to be denied, though, and took the Gold by four hundredths of a second, just failing to break 34 seconds.

GOLD GUERRA RODRIGUEZ Lisandra CUB 34.021
SILVER KRUPECKAITE Simona LTU 34.066
BRONZE CLAIR Sandie FRA 34.253
7 READE Shanaze GBR 34.702
9 BLYTH Anna GBR 34.792

Team Sprint Podium - Pic by Guy Swarbrick

The French had to sing their national anthem when the PA broke - Pic by Guy Swarbrick

Men – Team Sprint
France and Great Britain have dominated the Team Sprint over the last few years with GB taking the honours in 2005 and France in 2006 and 2007. Qualifying would keep them apart with Great Britain facing Germany in the penultimate heat and France taking on the Netherland, but nobody was betting against them meeting in the final.

The first heat saw the USA riding alone, with Michael Blatchford, Adam Duvendeck and Giddeon Massie setting the benchmark at 45.128 seconds. The next heat went off without incident – Poland, paired with the Czech Republic, just failing to knock the US team off the early leaderboard.
The third heat saw the Greek leadout rider Athanasios Mantzouranis fall out of the starting gate and then - once he’d composed himself and the heat was restarted – lead his team round on their own as the Malaysians also had starting problems. The Malaysian team was allowed a second run, but neither they nor Greece were ever in contention.

The Ukraine beat the US time by six hundredths in heat 4 but the Russians on the opposite station took off another tenth to take the lead. After a false start, China and Japan slotted themselves in between Russia and the Ukraine in the standings with three heats – and all the tournament favourites – still to come.

A strong Australian team of Daniel Ellis, Mark French and Ben Kersten powered they way to the top of the rankings against a lacklustre Spanish squad, but they weren’t there for long.

Starting on the back straight, the German lead out – Rene Enders – went out fast, almost dropping team mates Maximilian Levy and Stefan Nimke. Not the best coordinated run of the day, perhaps, but it was quick – over three tenths quicker than the Australians.

On the home straight the GB trio of Ross Edgar, Chris Hoy and Jamie Staff looked much more composed and eased into first place – and a guaranteed place in one of the two finals – with a time of 43.910.

The formidable Netherlands squad of Theo Bos, Teun Mulder and Tim Veldt looked good as they, too, squeezed under 44 seconds. Their time of 43.958, though, wasn’t good enough to deny Great Britain a place in the Gold-Silver final – and with France posting a 43.514 – the Dutch would have to settle for the 3rd-4th run off.

The French looked majestic; Gregory Bauge maintained his reputation as the fastest lead out rider in the world with a 17.271 first lap and Mickaël Bourgain and Kévin Sireau kept their part of the bargain, posting the 2nd fastest times for their legs (behind Teun Mulder and, remarkably, Andriy Vinoukorov of the Ukraine who finished ninth in spite of his 13.345 last leg).

The Dutch took the Bronze medal with ease, beating the still ragged German squad by half a second. Surely the final would be closer.

The support for the home team was deafening and increased lap by lap. Spurred on by it Edgar, Hoy and Staff set the best time ever posted by a British Team Sprint squad. The French, however, were in a different league – Bourgain, despite his excellent performance in qualifying, was replaced by Arnand Tournant - Sireau moving to the middle stint and Tournant on the anchor leg. Sireau rode the middle lap a tenth quicker than Bourgain had, off the back of a first lap improved by seven hundredths. With anchor man Tournant five hundredths faster than Sireau’s earlier effort, France had won by a full half second – setting a new World Record in the process.

Under normal circumstances, the failure of the organiser to play the national anthem of the winning team would have been a disaster. When it happened during the Team Sprint medal ceremony, the crowd stood in for the PA system, singing and clapping a reasonable rendition of the Marseillaise. The French trio looked bemused at first, then amused and finally joined in with the crowd to finish the anthem.

GOLD FRA France 43.271
BAUGE Gregory
SIREAU Kévin
TOURNANT Arnaud

SILVER GBR Great Britain 43.777
EDGAR Ross
HOY Chris
STAFF Jamie

BRONZE NED Netherlands 43.718
BOS Theo
MULDER Teun
VELDT Tim

Aliaksandr Lisouski BLR Winner Men Scratch - Pic by Guy Swarbrick

Men – Scratch Race
A thrilling Men’s scratch race started with a bang – Aliaksandr Lisouski of Belarus going straight off the front and pulling out a big lead. For a while it looked as though he would catch the field but as he closed in on the back of the bunch they finally got themselves organised and pulled away. Within a couple of laps he was swallowed up.

The front of the group was fast and furious – so much so that young Briton Stephen Burke was dropped by the field - but with nobody willing to work together and nobody strong enough to pull away there was no sign of a decisive move. With 10 laps to go Kazuhiro Mori of Japan got a gap on the bunch and started to pull away. He held it, too, until four to go when he was joined by Andreas Mueller of Austria. Lisouski wasn’t finished, though, and he made the decisive move with two to go – pulling the bunch with him and swamping the two breakaway riders to take the Gold with Wim Stroetinga of the Netherlands in second and Roger Kluge of Germany third.

GOLD LISOUSKI Aliaksandr BLR
SILVER STROETINGA Wim NED
BRONZE KLUGE Roger GER