Australia’s Matthew Richardson has edged ahead in the UCI Track Champions League men’s sprint category but the fight for overall victory looks set to go down to the wire.
Richardson moved ahead overall of archrival Harrie Lavreysen thanks to a win in the keirin category, only to see his five point margin shrink to just two points as Lavreysen bounced back with a triumph in the individual sprint.
The last round of the Track Champions League in London on Saturday evening will therefore decide the winner overall. But on Friday Richardson came away pleased with repeating his keirin victory in last week’s Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines round in the teeth of some ferocious opposition.
“It was pretty simple. Harrie was pretty cagey up front. I just waited until the move came from behind and gave it a really good kick to get to the front, left my final acceleration with a lap to go and managed to hold on,” Richardson said afterwards.
However, Lavreysen later managed to follow up his own victory in France in the men’s sprint final with a repeat triumph in the British capital. And once again, Richardson was the man for Lavreysen to beat.
“I felt good, Matthew went first,” Lavereysen told reporters. “I didn’t expect it but I thought if he’s not going to do it, I don’t want to do it either.”
“He had a really good tactic, it was really hard. But I just made it over the finish line.”
Lavreysen said he was going to rest up as best he could prior to the Saturday showdown: “I’m going to recover as well as possible, lay in bed all day. Then I just go race by race. There’s still only two points, anything can happen.”
Valente widens gap in women’s endurance league
While the men’s sprint still hangs in the balance, another hotly disputed category, the women’s endurance, has seen league leader Jennifer Valente (USA) put some vital distance between herself and key challenger Katie Archibald (GB).
A second place for Archibald in the scratch race behind Ireland’s Emily Kay briefly put Archibald in the overall lead of the league. But Valente’s triumph in the elimination race, where Archibald finished seventh, has allowed the US rider to bounce back with a vengeance.
“In the elimination race, there’s not actually that much strategy involved because you can’t get out,” Valente said afterwards. “Even if you’re trying to recover, you can’t get your heart rate down, you still have to be pretty active in the bike race and present at…
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