Day Two, Thursday, August 28, 1997, Morning Session
Some results and all reports kindly supplied by
Graham Dowden.
Olympic Sprint, Round 1Several of the Keirin riders could be seen lining up again this morning for the qualifying round of the 3 lap Olympic sprint For the unititiated, this involves two opposing teams each of three men who ride three laps with one man dropping off each time. Like a 3 man pursuit run at six times the pace over a fifth of the distance, or a 3 up time trail. Clear? OK, down to the action.Early best time was set by GBR, even though the front man was a bit to far ahead on lap one and on lap two the rear man looked about to pass his leader. Their time of 47.955 beat the NZL team, all riding twin discs and possibly suffering a lack of initial acceleration as a result. Most other teams rode a rear disc and front Shamal or similar. Switzerland rode by themselves and failed to qualify at 48.917, as did Japan at 48.086 and Argentina at 48.347. Poland posted a good 46.900 against Spain on heavily gusseted conventional steel frames at a better 47.503. Italy downed the Netherlands in flourescent orange helmets (Bill, I want you to have a word about that to the Dutch Cycling Federation), posting 47.652 to take the last of the eight qualifying places. The Dutch were all over the track in starting and could not recover at 48.327. Kilometre silver medalist Lausberg of Germany started his team and rode to third fastest final time of 46.505 against a suprisingly good 4th fastest of 46.611 by Greece aboard very nice Hotta type blue monocoques. The fastest round so far for the second top seeds. The last round had a minor hitch as anchorman Kelly of AUS fell over while being set for takeoff, and appeared to twist his seatpost. Charlie Walsh was able to get the Commisare to halt the countdown while someone ran for an allen key and tightened it up. But it was the French aboard identical yellow Looks with five spoke Mavic carbon wheels who got the better of Australia - the Olympic 1km and world sprint champion Florian Rousseau bringing the Fench home to qualify fastest at at searing 45.160 against Australia's second fastest 46.313. Qualifiers * FRA 45.160 * AUS 46.313 * GER 46.505 * GRE 46.611 * ESP 47.503 * POL 46.900 * GBR 47.066 * ITA 47.652 Sprint, Women, Round 1Nothing very exciting to report in the first round of the women's sprint. As expected, the favourties cruised to easy wins, while some of the other riders barely seemed to be trying.Defending two times world champion Felicia Balanger easily defeated Wendy of the UK, who later trailed off the back in the repecharge and was easily beaten by Razmaite of Lituanina. The latter was previously beaten in her first round by Russion Enoukhina in what appeared to be little more than a warm up lap in a shameful time over 14s. Australian strongwoman Michelle Ferris cruised to a country mile win over Giovanna troldi of Italy, who was later cleanly dropped off the back in a three up repechage againts Malianova RUS and Szabolcsi HUN, the Russian winning easily. Giovanna was later seen on her immaculate white Coppi on the road from the velodrome, no doubt getting out to clear her head and make up for not proceeding in the sprint. The other Russion Grichina disposed of Kasslin of Finland, who was again easily beaten in the 3-up repechage by Jeaanie Reed of the USA who also elimintaed Fiona Ramage of NZ. Reed was earlier declassified for entering her opponents line in the first round against Yanovych of the Ukraine, which didn't really matter as she had been beaten already. . It was however one of the most spirited round of the competition. First prize for real conmpetition went to the last of the first pairs, Wang CHN and Muenzer CAN, who went neck and neck for the entire bell lap with Muenzer just geting it on the line. Strangley, Wang did not even front for the repechage, instead preffering to calmly eat an apple in the bearpit. Were orders received from above not to participate in the corrupt activities of the west? Stay tuned for more trackside details as things hot up in the ensuing rounds tonight ...
Results * Ballanger FRA def Everson GBR * Ferris AUS def Troldi ITA * Faure FRA def Ramage NZL * Grichina RUS def Kasslin FIN * Dubnicoff CAN def Malianova RUS * Enoukhina RUS def Razmaite LIT * Freitag GER def Szabolcsi HUN * Yanovich UKR def Reed USA * Muenzer CAN def Wang CHN Repechage * Razmaite UKR def Everson GBR. Wang CHN DNS. * Malianova RUS def Troldi ITA and Szabolcsi * Reed USA def Ramage NZL and Kasslin FIN |