Hansen wins gold for Denmark in inaugural men's omnium

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Men's Omnium

Denmark's Lasse Norman Hansen put forth an impressive final night of racing to bring his country its first cycling gold medal in the inaugural edition of the men's omnium. After a gutsy effort to overcome a crash in the scratch race and chase down a breakaway of eight that had lapped the field, Hansen was able to ride the second fastest kilometer time trial to secure his overall victory by two points over Frenchman Bryan Coquard.

"It feels weird. I still cannot believe it," Hansen said afterward. "It's so unreal. It's the biggest thing that you can ever achieve for an omnium rider, so it's just a crazy feeling."

Great Britain's gold medal winning team pursuiter Ed Clancy was the fastest against the clock in the final event, even touching the Olympic kilometer record with a remarkable time of 1:00.981, but it wasn't enough to make up for his relatively poor showings in the mass start events and he took the bronze.

Sitting in fifth place heading into the second half of the omnium, Hansen rode a spectacular individual pursuit to beat Clancy by a mere two-tenths of a second - a result that moved him into third overall behind Australian Glenn O'Shea and Clancy.

The critical race of the night for Hansen proved to be the scratch race, where a dangerous group of eight riders escaped to lap the field, leaving him, O'Shea and Clancy behind. Hansen, ever attentive, was preparing to jump across with Clancy when the breakaway ahead was just being established, but crashed. He was allowed to restart, and then went on to solo away from the field as the breakaway was taking a lap.

"I had a really bad feeling after the crash. I think the adrenaline just came in, to kick in the wheel, to finish it," Hansen said. "It's really important getting back up. And gaining a lap was unreal. It gave me the belief in finishing. I actually didn't believe in myself after the crash, but I got back up and took the lap. I just got the final power.

"When I landed on my back, I thought it was over. Then I got back up and was really lucky and fought hard for the lap. I really thought, 'now I cannot miss it'. When I saw after the race I was in the lead, I just went in the box, pulling inside myself."

That group included Coquard, Italian Elia Viviani and German Roger Kluge, and Hansen knew he could not afford to let them go and settle for ninth at best. He attacked away from the field and rode solo until he, too, gained a lap, pulling even with his foes. In the final sprint, Hansen took sixth place, good enough to take the lead heading into the final event, tied on points with Viviani and Coquard, with Kluge and Clancy three and four points in arrears.

The night came down to the race of truth: a lung-busting all-out four-lap effort against the clock that would separate the top contenders. Clancy and O'Shea were the third to last heat off, but by far the most intense race of the night.

The British rider crushed the time of all the rest, but the omnium is not about one race: it is all about consistency, and Hansen showed he can do it all. His time was good enough for second place, although he was nearly two seconds slower than Clancy.

Coquard's fourth place secured the silver, his individual pursuit his only weak point of the night.

"It's a dream come true," the Frenchman said of his silver medal. "Even in my craziest dreams I couldn't imagine it. I thought of all the sacrifices I made to be here. This medal is the result of a four-year plan. I have been junior world champion twice, then it wasn't easy moving to the elite, but everything worked just perfectly."

Coquard put in top five performances in everything except the individual pursuit, which was his weakness. Even though he was 12th in the pursuit here, it was an improvement over a 15th place at the Worlds.

"I'm one of the fastest in the sprint events, but in the endurance events I had some difficulties. After the world championships in March (April in Melbourne) I worked on it with my staff. I had five people just for me. I thank them all, it was the ideal omnium for me."

Clancy admitted that he put most of his focus into the team pursuit in London, and was just hoping for the best he could get out of the omnium. The problem was, in the points and scratch races he could not match the accelerations of the riders who went on to lap the field.

"In the points race, those guys just tore me apart, but that elimination [where he finished fifth] saved my race. In the scratch, I was in it to win it but I didn't have the legs. I don't know who finished where. I had the form of my life in the kilo, the flying lap and the individual pursuit. I beat them by a mile in all of them. At one point I was looking at getting the gold but, in the scratch, it just slipped away."

Men's Omnium - 4km Individual Pursuit

Women's Individual Sprint

In the qualifying round of the women's sprint, home favourite Victoria Pendleton picked up where her compatriot Jason Kenny left off, coming in quickest with a new Olympic Record - 10.724 seconds for the 200m flying lap.

Anna Meares (Australia) came in second with a strong ride, having to face a wall of silence rather than the thunderous roar that Pendleton enjoyed. She topped Guo Shuang, with German Kristina Vogel coming in a close fourth.

The 1/16 rounds were a straightforward affair, with the top eight qualifiers advancing easily. However, in the final heat New Zealand's Natasha Hansen was pushed into repechage by Ukraine's Lyobov Shulika, who attacked early heading into the bell and held off the acceleration of the Kiwi. Hansen was able to advance out of the repechage rounds, however, along with Monique Sullivan (Canada) and Willy Kanis (Netherlands).

Pendleton, Meares, Guo and Vogel cruised through their 1/8 finals, but the races became much tighter in the final two heats: Simona Krupeckaite (Lithuania) made mincemeat of Olga Panarina in their heat, while the scrappy Cuban Lisandra Guerra Rodriguez barely escaped relegation with a warning in her victory over Honk Kong's Lee Wai Sze.

Shulika and Panarina got their second chance through the repechage round, and advanced to the quarterfinal. In the race for 9th-12 places, it was Dutchwoman Kanis who won over Lee, with Sullivan and Hansen rounding out the match.

Men's individual sprint

The men's sprint quarterfinals were decided in two races for each heat, with home favourtie Jason Kenny (Great Britain) easily advancing over Malaysian Awang Azizulhasni. Awang pushed Kenny hard, making the second race one of the fastest match sprints in Olympic history.

German Robert Forstemann was no match for the French world champion Gregory Bauge. It appeared to take far less than the maximum effort for Bauge to send Forstemann packing, and he cruised in after two matches to advance to the semifinal.

Shane Perkins similarly dispatched American Jimmy Watkins, but the matches between Russian Denis Dmitriyev and Njisane Phillip (Trinidad & Tobago) were far closer. Phillip's tactic to push the pace from the front and force the Russian to chase worked to perfection, although his margin of victory was razor thin each time.

Dmitriev went on to win the race for 5th-8th places over Watkins, Forstemann and Awang.