World Track Championships - CM

Melbourne, Australia, May 26-30, 2004

Event program and results

Tales from the track

News and gossip from day 4 of the Melbourne World Track Championships

The luck of the draw for Inagaki

By Karen Forman in Melbourne

Japanese rider Hiroyuki Inagaki just scraped in to qualify for the first round of the men's world championship sprint today thanks to a little-used UCI rule that requires a draw to be conducted if two riders tie for the final qualification place.

Competition was extremely stiff in the flying 200-metre qualifier this afternoon - the final chance for the world's best sprinters to gain precious berths for their countries (and themselves if selected by their individual countries) for the Athens Olympic Games. While nobody came close to the world record time set by Canadian Curt Harnett in Bogota in 1995 (9.865 seconds), little separated the top 25.

But unfortunately only the fastest 18 could go through to the first round and because of a very rare tie in these days of 1/1000th second precision timing, the 18th spot came down to a lucky (or unlucky, depending on which way you look at it) draw.

The 26 year old from Kyoto, taking part in his first world championships, had tied in 18th spot with Cuban Ahmed Naranjo Lopez. Both on 10.624, they were 0.302 of a second off the time set by fastest qualifier Matthias John of Germany (10.322)

What that meant for officials was a deep dig into the UCI rule book to uncover an obscure rule directing them to draw one of the names out of a hat. And Inagaki was the lucky winner.

Had the rule not changed, however, the spot would have belonged to Lopez. Competition director Mark Fulcher told Cyclingnews that the original rule, which was still in use when "(Darren) Hill and someone else tied in Bordeaux, France at the 1998 Worlds", had decreed that the rider to race last would be granted the position.

"It happens rarely because these days we are timing up to 1/1000 of a second," he said.

Inagaki was obviously very happy to be able to go through to the first round, saying "if this happened in Japan, often the rider who has won the position in a draw will ride in the final. I will do my very best."

Unfortunately pitted against fastest qualifier John (10.837), he didn't make it any further.

Lopez, who holds the current junior world record (10.18 in the China World Cup in August 2002) was circumspect about losing the draw. "Emotionally I feel a bit ambivalent but physically I felt good for the ride," he said. "I feel a bit down that luck played a part in it"

Lopez came to Melbourne from a silver medal in the kilo at the Sydney World Cup a fortnight ago, aiming to qualify Cuba for the Olympics in the team sprint (which they did with 46.561 in 13th place) and the sprint.

"We have already qualified Cuba for the kilo because I finished equal top of the World Cup rankings with Theo Bos on 27 points," he said.

Day 4 News from the Melbourne World Track Championships

• French track cycling legend Florian Rousseau has told Cyclingnews that he plans to retire from the sport after this year's world championships.The classy sprint legend was unable to secure a berth for Athens in the talent-heavy French track squad that includes Arnaud Tournant, Laurent Gane and Mickaël Bourgain who combined to win the team sprint gold on Wednesday.
• Japanese rider Hiroyuki Inagaki just scraped in to qualify for the first round of the men's world championship sprint today thanks to a little-used UCI rule that requires a draw to be conducted if two riders tie for the final qualification place.
• There's more ways for a cycling-mad guy to get to elite events than by actually racing a bicycle.Ben Kelly from Adelaide is the perfect example. Not quite quick enough on the bike himself to race at international level, he gets his fix by working as a mechanic for the Australian national team when it is on the road.
• Victorian teenager Michael Ford smashed Brad McGee's ten year old under-19 3000m individual pursuit world record at the Australian Championships last month, taking over two seconds off McGee's long standing record with a sensational 3:17.775. Ford was one of the stars of the Aussie titles, claiming gold in the individual pursuit, team pursuit and Madison, and silver in the points race.