Colombia marked the golden cross on the second day of track cycling of these XIX Pan American Games thanks to Martha Bayona’s title in the keirin; while Canada confirmed itself as the leader in the medal table with its second crown, this time in the women’s team pursuit.

In the women’s keirin event, Martha Bayona took gold, defeating the Mexican Luz Gaxiola and the Jamaican Dahlia Palmer, silver and bronze, respectively. The other Colombian in competition, Marianis Salazar, finished in seventh position.

“Very happy, we are doing very well and we hope to do things well in terms of speed tomorrow. “Everything was my coach’s decision, who told me how to run, I listened to him, we were very connected,” Bayona told the media.

The track player from Santander, who came from the first phase of the Track Nations League in Mallorca, Spain, directly to compete in Santiago, will return to action this Thursday in the individual speed test.

For its part, Canada continued to show a very stable dominance in the track events and won the title in the women’s cycling team pursuit, beating Mexico in the final, while the bronze went to Colombia.

This turned out to be one of the most exciting finals in track cycling, as the four teams that wanted to get to the top of the podium were Canada, Mexico, Colombia and the United States, who fought pedal by pedal at the Peñalolén Velodrome.

Finally, the Canadian team won the dispute for gold, after Devaney Collier and Fiona Majendie defeated the Mexicans Lizbeth Salazar and María Antonieta Gaxiola. The Canadian team, which was also made up of Kiara Lylyk and Catherine West, won by seven seconds, thanks to the 4:23,000 they did against the Mexicans’ 4:30,000.

After the victory, Lylyk said that “it is my first year as an elite and being able to run with these girls is the best. They called me at the last minute and I am very proud of this team.”

The bronze medal was awarded to the Colombian team, made up of Andrea Alzate, Juliana Londoño, Lina Rojas and Luna Hernández, who defeated the Americans Chloe Patrick, Colleen Gulick, Olivia Cummins and Shayna Powless.

Source: Revista Mundo Ciclístico y Panam Sports