With twelve gold medals and five bronze medals, the United States won the Pan American Track Championships that took place during five days at the Velo Sports Center in Los Angeles, United States, and which was the penultimate event scoring for the Olympic ranking for Paris 2024.
The local team was followed by Colombia, with the same number of gold medals as the northern team, but of lesser value (4-10-3), while Mexico took third place (3-4-4), Trinidad and Tobago was fourth (2-0-2) and Canada fifth (1-6-5). In total, eight of the 18 countries won a metal in this event.
As expected, Jennifer Valente, along with Megan Jastrab, won her fifth gold of the event by taking the Madison, the men’s version of which was won by compatriots Gran Koontz and Peter Moore. The first of them also took the elimination; while the last victories were Colombian, by Martha Bayona in the keirin, and Santiago Ramirez in the kilometer time trial.
The Americans made the difference from the beginning, scoring in all the sprints, winning 8 of them to win with 51 points. The fight in this race was between Lina Hernandez and Juliana Londoño and Lily Plante and Ngaire Barraclough, which was not decided until the last sprint won by the Canadians, but it was not enough to displace the Colombians, who with their third place took the silver: 32 to 29.
The men’s elimination saw Koontz triumph over Colombia’s Arango, who again had to settle for silver, while Chile’s Jacob Decar finished off the podium with bronze.
The American, together with Moore, was able to reverse a Madison in which the Mexicans Fernando Gabriel Nava and Edibaldo Maldonado were dominating, thanks to a winning lap that allowed them to win: 79 to 59. The Colombians Arango and Jordan Arley Parra also won a lap, but it was not enough to catch the Mexicans, but it was enough to distance themselves from the Canadians and get the bronze.
For his part, Bayona won his second gold medal of the Championships, after yesterday’s 500m time trial. In her favorite event, the keirin, she beat Mexico’s Luz Daniela Gaxiola and Canada’s Kelsey Mitchell.
Very interesting was the kilometer where the Colombians Cristian David Ortega and Ramirez were far superior to everyone in the qualifying, as well as in the final, where they exchanged their positions, and with a minimal difference of just four hundredths, between them, 1:00.796 to 1:00.835. The podium was completed by American David Domonoské, with 1:02.689.
Thus closed the Pan American track cycling championship at the Velo Sports Center in Los Angeles, where the last points for the Olympic ranking were accumulated. For the first time, the United States was the host of these continental competitions and fulfilled not only with excellent organization, but also with its triumph in 12 of the 22 sets of medals in dispute.