The United States, with eight gold, three silver and two bronze medals, was the great winner of the Pan American Track Championship, which was held for five days in Asuncion, Paraguay, where the best of the continent in this specialty met.
The Americans were followed by Trinidad and Tobago with four medals, while Colombia, with 20 medals (3- 10- 7) was the nation that collected the most medals on the podium.
Precisely on the last day, the Colombians Lina Marcela Hernandez and Elizabeth Castaño, and the Americans Peter Moore and Brendam Rhim in the Madison were crowned champions. Also Rhim in the elimination, Nicholas Paul from Trinidad and Tobago in the kilometer and the Canadian Lauriane Genest, in the keirin.
Rhim gave the first win of the afternoon to the United States in an elimination in which he beat Colombia’s Jordan Arley Parra and Chile’s Jacob Decar. The second came in the Madison, in which Rhim was again the protagonist, this time together with Moore.
There they made their greater presence count to defeat Colombia, which again had Parra as the protagonist, this time together with Juan Esteban Arango, 91-70. Like these two teams, Mexico won a round, but it was no good as Argentina (Ruben Gabriel Ramos and Marcos Omar Mendez) scored more points to take the bronze, 57-34.
For Rhim, the afternoon allowed him to culminate a great Pan American, with three golds – he also won the team pursuit – and a silver, in the scratch.
The women’s version was a duel between the Colombians and Americans Bethany Ingram and Olivia Cummins, with the former winning 49 to 42, after neither of them had almost any presence in the final third of the race. Canada, with Lily Plante and Fiona Majendie, with 9 points, won bronze in the final sprint to beat the pair from Trinidad and Tobago.
The kilometer qualifier featured two runners under a minute, precisely the two best in the 200 meters on Friday, although changing the order, Cristian David Ortega and Nicholas Paul, separated by just a tenth of a second.
However, in the final the order was changed again, as the Trinidadian Paul went back under the minute (59.729), but not the Colombian (1:00.372), thus finishing this Pan American also with three golds and a silver, which, like Rhim, surpassed in metals to the Mexican Yareli Acevedo, who took three titles (scratch, elimination and omnium). The bronze went to Canada’s James Hedgcock, with a time of 1:00.798.
Finally, Canadian Genest took her second gold of the event, in this case in the keirin, where she was ahead of Mexico’s Yuli Verdugo and Colombia’s Stefany Cuadrado.