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29th Olympic Games - JO

Beijing, China, August 9-23, 2008

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Event 7 - August 15: Women's Individual Pursuit Qualifying Round

More British domination in women's pursuit

By Laura Weislo

Wendy Houvenaghel (Great Britain) clocks the fastest time in qualifying for the women's individual pursuit
Photo ©: AFP
(Click for larger image)

Great Britain continued its domination of the first day of track racing by putting both of its women at the top of the individual pursuit qualifying board. Wendy Houvenaghel clocked a 3'28.443 as the fastest time just ahead of the world champion Rebecca Romero, with the 20-year-old Ukrainian Lesya Kalitovska in third more than three seconds in arrears.

New Zealand's Alison Shanks was fourth fastest, pacing a bit better than Sarah Hammer (USA), who faded in the final kilometre. The former world champion will have a second chance at making the medals in Saturday's first round heats as will Lithuanian Vilija Sereikaite, Katie Mactier (Australia) and Lada Kozlikova (Czech Republic). Road time trial bronze medallist Karin Thürig slipped just outside the next round in ninth.

"It was ugly for me personally," Hammer said of her qualifying heat. "That's not how I hope to feel. My body wasn't handling it today. Four laps in I was like, 'oh, this is not going to be fun.' It was just a bad day. I was a little nervous, so I'm lucky it's over three rounds."

The top eight riders will go head-to-head in Saturday's first round, where the fastest two will advance to the gold medal final on Sunday and the third and fourth best will contend for the bronze.

Photography

For a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here

Images by AFP Photo

Images by Casey Gibson/www.cbgphoto.com

Images by Rob Jones/www.canadiancyclist.com

Images by Greg Chang/PhotoSport International

Results

1 Wendy Houvenaghel (Great Britain)    3.28.443 (51.812km/h)
2 Rebecca Romero (Great Britain)       3.28.641
3 Lesya Kalitovska (Ukraine)           3.31.942
4 Alison Shanks (New Zealand)          3.34.312
5 Sarah Hammer (United States)         3.35.471
6 Vilija Sereikaite (Lithuania)        3.36.063
7 Katie Mactier (Australia)            3.38.178
8 Lada Kozlikova (Czech Republic)      3.39.561
9 Karin Thurig (Switzerland)           3.40.862
10 Maria Luisa Calle (Colombia)        3.41.175
11 Verena Jooss (Germany)              3.44.480
12 Svetlana Pauliukaite (Lithuania)    3.45.691
13 Evelyn Garcia (El Salvador)         3.56.849

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