The second day of the Track World Championships in Santiago, Chile saw three more individual rainbows: Germany’s Moritz Augenstein in the scratch race, Ireland’s Lara Gillespie in the elimination race, and the Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen in the keirin. The day saw the Danish men’s and Italian women’s quartets win the team pursuit events.
The men’s scratch race, which for the first time was held over the shorter distance, the women’s 10-kilometer, 40-lap race, was a truly madcap race with numerous attacks until a group of seven riders formed in the final laps, with Augenstein’s power taking the lead in the final three laps, not allowing anyone to take over until he passed first.
The outcome was quite chaotic, as images showed Portuguese Yanne Dorenbos raising his arm and stopping pedaling, while focusing on Campbell Stewart, who apparently completed the podium. Fortunately, the marshals correctly determined that the Portuguese had taken the bronze. As many as eight riders ended up losing the lap, including Spaniard Garaiar, in 21st place.
The elimination race was quite eventful, due to two collective crashes that forced the race to be stopped and restarted. There weren’t many surprises in the early eliminations until the strongest or most alert riders arrived in the final stretch. Victoire Berteau was left out of the final sprints for the medals, and Helene Hesters let herself go when she saw herself with the bronze. And when Katie Archibald attacked determinedly to win, Lara Gillespie came back well on the outside to take a gold medal, which she had already won this winter at the European Championships.
The keirin was Harrie Lavreysen’s second gold medal at this Championships, the eighteenth of his career, and especially the 2-0 victory in the expected duel with Matthew Richardson, which so far has clearly been going in the Dutchman’s favor. With an attack with two laps remaining, he took the lead and a lead that his rivals could not overcome, although it is true that the first to surprise was his compatriot Jeffrey Hoogland, who, when he reacted, was unable to overtake Leigh Hoffmann, who took silver, with the Dutchman completing the podium.
In the first round, it is worth noting that the Dutchman did not qualify directly, but he had no trouble winning his repechage, something that specialists such as Stefano Moro, Luca Spiegel, Cristian Ortega, Maximilian Dornbach, and, above all, the reigning champion, Kento Yamasaki, could not achieve.
The big surprise came in the quarterfinals, a series that doesn’t seem too complicated since only two are eliminated in each of the three heats. But the third heat was a superb one with riders like Kaiya Ota, Nicholas Paul, Lavreysen, and Tom Derache, who were the ones who advanced… with none other than Richardson being eliminated.
Shinji Nakano also failed to qualify, this time due to relegation in the first heat. And in the semifinals, the only “favorite” to be eliminated was Nicholas Paul, although he was affected by a crash by Russian Nikita Kiriltsev that cut short his comeback.
The men’s pursuit competition was decided in the final between Denmark (Tobias Aagaard Hansen, Rasmus Lund Pedersen, Niklas Larsen, and Frederik Rodenberg Madsen, with Lasse Norman Leth as the fifth man) and Australia (Blake Agnoletto, Oliver Bleddyn, Conor Leahy, James Moriarty, and the initial contribution of Liam Walsh), with an excellent qualifying time of 3:43.784 for the Europeans.
And in the final, the Danes dominated throughout, almost matching their qualifying time of 3:43.915 and beating their rivals by almost 3.5 seconds, 3:47.827, achieving their third consecutive rainbow medal. As for the bronze medal final, New Zealand, with Thomas Sexton, Marshall Erwood, Keegan Hornblow, and Nicholas Kergozou, and the United States, with Ashlin Barry, Grant Koontz, Graeme Frislie, and Anders Johnson, were separated by just half a second, at 3:48. Although in the final, the Kiwis were also behind throughout, without major gaps, but enough to complete the podium: 3:48.877 to 3:49.799.
More surprising was the outcome of the women’s tournament, which only held the first day of qualifying, with Italy and Great Britain separated by just two-tenths of a second. But the cross-country races showed that Germany hadn’t wasted all its energy, and from two seconds behind, they clearly surpassed Great Britain (4:09.059 to 4:10.736) and reached the final against an Italy that had no problems in its heat against an Australia that even missed out on medal contention in favor of the rising Belgium.
And in the final, despite the dominance of the Italians, the Germans’ final push left them just four-tenths of a second away from gold: 4:09.569 for Vittoria Guazzini, Matina Fidanza, Martina Alzini, and Federica Venturelli, with Chiara Consonni contributing in the second round; 4:09.951 for Messane Bräuttigam, Franziska Brausse, Lisa Klein, and Claudia Sussemilch, with Mieke Kröker completing the quintet.
Great Britain (Megan Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris, Maddie Leech, and Jessica Roberts) were relentless in the fight for bronze against the Belgians, without needing to push their pace, 4:12.380 to 4:18.675.