Pendleton clears first hurdle in Keirin

Image 1 of 16

Men’s omnium

200m TT

Great Britain’s Ed Clancy took an early lead in the men’s omnium when he won the opening round, the 200m flying start. The Briton covered the distance in a time of 10.448 seconds, beating the 10.567 of closest challenger Tim Veldt (Netherlands). Alois Kankovsky (Czech Republic) and Myron Simpson (New Zealand) were next, with the USA favourite Taylor Phinney in sixth.

Last year’s omnium winner Leigh Howard was back in eleventh. He was fourth in the same event last year.

Scratch race

Tim Mertens won a big sprint to take the omnium scratch race, the Belgian beating Robert Bartko (Germany) and Leigh Howard (Australia) at the end of the 40-lap event.

They were amongst the 10 riders who gained a lap or more on the rest of the field, with the aggressive race causing many splits.

The first serious move came from Vitaliy Shchedov, who powered clear very soon after the start and went a considerable way towards lapping the bunch. The Ukrainian go to within 50 metres but ran out of steam and started slipping back. At the same time, the chasing pack split and several riders found themselves in the wrong half. One of those was Taylor Phinney (USA) but he jumped back across.

At the halfway point the race broke apart again and a number of riders moved forwards. Amongst this group were David Muntaner Juaneda (Spain), Juan Esteban Arango Carvajal (Colombia), Elia Viviani (Italy), Ho Ting Kwok (Hong Kong), Tim Maertens (Belgium), Phinney, Bartko and Howard. These lapped the field with about 15 laps to go.

Howard was prominent towards the end and with five laps to go, he went clear with Viviani and Muntaner, but they came back together. Mertens then proved quickest in the gallop, finishing ahead of Bartko and Howard.

Pursuit

As expected, double world champion Taylor Phinney (USA) was quickest in the pursuit which, for the purposes of the omnium, was run off under the reduced 3000 metre distance. His rivals, however, ran him close; David Muntaner Juaneda (Spain) was less than a second off Phinney’s 3:16.864, while both Vitaliy Shchedov (Ukraine) and Ed Clancy (Great Britain) limited their loss to under two seconds.

Robert Bartko (Germany) and Elia Viviani (Italy) had been joint first before the pursuit, but fell back somewhat when they placed tenth and twelfth. Muntaner Juaneda and Phinney moved into the first two places overall, ending the morning session on a high note.

Women’s Keirin

Heat 1: Australian rider Emily Rosemond took the opening heat of the women’s keirin, leading home yesterday’s sprint silver medallist Shuang Guo of China. The race saw the Italian Elisa Frisoni crash out, but fortunately she didn't appear to be badly hurt. No other riders came down in the incident.

Heat 2: Sprint winner Victoria Pendleton showed that she had no lingering after-effects of her fall in yesterday’s sprint final, winning ahead of Clara Sanchez (France) and Kaarle McCulloch (Australia). The latter led after the derny pulled off and remained in front heading towards the final lap. Sanchez jumped hard before the bell, but Pendleton got back to her and passed her relatively easily on the finishing straight.

Heat 3: 500 metre TT winner Anna Meares led the six riders into the final laps, then Simona Krupeckaite (Lithuania) burst past from a long way out. Dutchwoman Willy Kanis challenged her but cracked, slipping backwards. Meares recovered to take second behind Krupeckaite, while Renata Dabrowska (Poland) took third and went to the repechages with the others.

Repechages: Six riders had the chance to get back into the next round of the competition in the repechages. Willy Kanis (Netherlands) and Monique Sullivan (Canada) were the two riders who went through from the first of those, passing Britain’s Jessica Varnish who hit the front before the start of the final lap.

The second race saw Christin Muche (Germany) lead from a long way out, ramping up the speed with one lap to go and holding off a charge by Sandie Clair. Kaarle McCulloch came from fourth to second, nipping past Clair to progress to the next round.

The last two to go through were Olga Panarina (Belarus) and Miriam Welte (Germany).