Pfeiffer Georgi won Team GB’s only medal during Saturday’s evening session of the European Track championships in Munich.
The 21 year-old rode an intelligent, confident race, positioning herself well throughout, moving further forward as the bunch shrank, and only looked threatened when head to head with Lotte Kopecky in the final two laps.
Then, though she managed to position herself on Belgian’s wheel, Kopecky was too strong for the Brit, out-sprinting her to take the title.
The event was marred by a huge crash, which took down a number riders. Racing was suspended for 40 minutes while world champion Letizia Paternoster was treated at track side, then evacuated to hospital. It has since been reported she was conscious and has suffered only minor injuries.
The championships are being run on a 200m track as opposed to the more standard 250m loop, and while there is no evidence the tighter circuit had anything to do with the Elimination race crash, it has changed teams’ tactical approach.
Built specifically for the championships, the velodrome is a temporary structure built in a Munich exhibition hall, but with the Sprint races remaining at three laps, the distance is considerably shorter. This has encouraged competitors to go long or to simply hold the inside the line, forcing their opponents to ride the long way round.
This tactic worked well for Brit Hamish Turnbull. The underdog going into his Sprint quarter final against Mateusz Rudyk, he forced the Polish rider wide and into the same mistake twice, winning their clash with just two of the allowed three races.
Jack Carlin also qualified for the semi in two races. He was the fastest qualifier for Saturday’s quarter finals and duly got through, beating Hungarian Sándor Szalontay, meaning Team GB are now guaranteed a medal, as the two British riders will each face a Frenchman in Sunday’s semis, the final coming later that evening.
The women’s 500m time trial was the evening’s opening event with five time sprint world champion, German Emma Hinze starting as the favourite after qualifying fastest in front of her home crowd.
Italian Miriam Vece was well placed early on, but was pipped by Ukrainian, Olena Starikova whose 33.403 was only 0.03 faster. However, last off, Hinze dominated, eventually winning gold by more than 0.7 of a second.
In the men’s Individual Pursuit home rider Nicolas Heinrich easily out-qualified his eventual opponent, Italian Davide Plebiani, but their gold medal race…