Day Five, Sunday, August 31, 1997
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Some results and all reports kindly supplied by
Graham Dowden.
Women's Individual 3000m Pursuit Semi FinalsSorry to diappoint eager readers, but I missed this one entirely, but was told on good authority that in the second round, Yvonne McGregor GBR fought a close battle with Judith Arndt GER. Arndt took an early lead until McGregor started pulling her back right until the final few laps when Arndt went ahead to win by a close margin.Arndt GER 3.37.286 bt McGregor GBR 3.38 As for the first round, well Lucy lost to Points Race winner Karimova. Karimova RUS 3.37.621 bt Tyler-Sharman AUS 3.40.006 So this set up the final between 21 year old Arndt of Germany and the similarly young looking Karimova of Russia, with fastest semifinal loser McGregor of Britain getting the bronze. Natalia Karimova (Russia) 3:37.621 beat Lucy Tyler-Sharman 3:40.006 Judith Arndt (Germany) 3:37.286 beat Yvonne McGregor (Britain) 3:38.526 Yvonne McGregor (Britain) won the bronze medal with the fastest losing time in the semifinals. Women's Individual 3000m Pursuit FinalAnd so to the final, with Judith Arndt of Germany lining up on the home side against Points Race winner Karimova of Russia at the back.Karimova was away to a strenuous start, pushing what appeared to be a very big gear, then sitting down on the front of her seat and loping away with big strokes to get an early lead of 0.1 at one lap. Arndt seemed to be spinning a bit faster and was 0.3 up on the next lap, which hovered between 0.6 and 0.8 until the kilometre when she was whittled down to 0.57, then 0.48 on the next laps. With the German team all urging Arndt on and only a sole Russian coach for Karimova, Arndt managed to hang on to a tense 0.5, then 0.6, 0.6 again, 0.7 then pull away to 1.17 at the bell with Karimova beginning to rock on the saddle with Arndt just wiggling a bit. Over the line for the last time and after the gun and the cheers Arndt comes back to her camp, laying on her back with a TV camera right in her face - delightful. The she gets up and exchanges hand slaps with all her team mates, embraces her coach, and sits down in the German corral to have a bit of a cry into a thoughtfully provided white towel. Meanwhile Karimova gets a quick hug and peck on the cheek from the blonde Russian woman who hands her her road bike to warm down. Judith Arndt (Germany) 3:38.730 seconds beat Natalia Karimova (Russia) 3:40.090 Men's Sprint Semi FinalsRide off for 3rd and 4th placeHill AUS v Pokorny GER In round one, AUS leads, GER up high at the bell, Hill gets down and pumps it out all the way to the line. Round two and GER leads, both very high and slow, Hill comes from behind at 1.5 to go, is roaring around the outside with 3/4 to go and Pokorny sits up on the home bend while Hill powers away to the bronze. Florian Rousseau (11.306 and 11.149 seconds for the last 200 metres) beat Darryn Hill (Australia), 2-0 Jens Fiedler (Germany) 11.051/10.980 beat Eyk Pokorny (Germany), 2-0 Third place race-off: Darryn Hill (Australia) 10.991/10.927 beat Eyk Pokorny (Germany), 2-0 Men's Sprint FinalFinally, the final between fastest qualifier and easy leader through all rounds Rousseau of France against Fielder of Germany. Both seasoned campaigners with medals to show for it.In round one it was Fiedler leading, both men right up on the railings as they came around on the first lap. Rousseau went underneath with 1.5 to go and picked up speed, Fielder following hard but Rousseau lead all the way to the line with the German unable to pass. Second round and do or die for Fielder. Indeed. A very slow lead out by Rousseau, high on the banking, until with a full 2.5 to go, Fiedler dives underneath, picks up speed to maximum and goes for the longest sprint in the championships, if not the world, apart from the Niewand victory at Atlanta against Harnett, if I remember correctly. Rousseau digs in with a grimace and winds it up savagely to try and bring back the 25m that Fielder has stolen on him. Dig, dig, digging hard is Rousseau to drag him back to 15m, 10m, 5m, the crowd roaring and stamping and banging the barriers to spur him on then Rousseau is side by side and screaming by on the outside of the last bend to win with a stunning display of pure speed. Rousseau is sitting on the track at the start line surrounded by photographers. Fielder does a lap and comes up to embrace him, both guys stand up with their arm around each other facing the grandstand waving to the crowd as the photographers scrabble for position in front of them On the podium, Hill gets the biggest cheer as he is presented with the bronze and he turns to look up at Rousseau as if to say "Hey, what can I do about it?" Then they are all in front of the podium for the photos, holding their medals up and banging each other on the head with their bunches of flowers. Ahh, youthful exuberance. And so that was it, the last event and the last medal of the 1997 World Track Championships. And this is Skybrook Technical Writing ending its coverage at 12:45am Perth time. Until next time. Goodnight. Florian Rousseau (France) 10.882/11.156 beat Jens Fiedler (Germany), 2-0 Men's Points Race, 40 kms, 160 lapsA very strange start to the Men's Point's race, reminiscent of the Women's race, as definite non-favorite Gary Anderson of NZL got away to an early lead, the pack failed to respond in any manner, and he was onto their back at 152 laps to go! It looked like it was all over .This inspirational ride motivated the other NZL rider to also have a shot. He was chased by O'Grady of AUS, not having a good Worlds, failing to qualify in team and individual pursuit, with POL and USA, and all were swept up at the bell for the first sprint taken by USA then Jauris of CZE. DEN and RUS got away 80m, with second of only two Finns at the Worlds Heinikainen following, and after the third sprint it was Stanstod DEN 5, Friedick USA 5 and Jauris CZE 5 all minus one lap to Anderson. Stocher AUT and Risi SWI get going until the next bell and take the sprint with the pack splintering behind them as they work to catch up. There is now a group of 8 in the lead: Martinello ITA, SWI, AUS, LAT, Llaneros of ESP and others who drive hard to be in the same straight as the pack by the next sprint them get on the back for one lap up like Anderson, now trailing from his effort. It's Six Day stars Risi and Martinello doing most of the work at the front with double medal pursuiter Ermenault FRA looking as if gold and bronze pursuit medal performances were simply good training for a hard Points race. Amazing. Will he race the Six Day circuit this winter? Points after sprint 6: Sandstod 8, Llaneros 6, Martinello 6, Walton 5, Friedick 5, Risi 5, Jauris 5 Make the most of those scores because the scoreboard, having failed to register that the group of 9 were now a lap up like Anderson, shortly afterward died for the duration of the event and came back with the start list, leaving everyone confused. Risi and Martinello were still driving with Ermenault and Stocher, and got another lap up by sprint 8. Everyone stayed together with ITA taking the next sprint, O'Grady tried to get away to big cheers with no effect despite help from NDL and JPN. They were swept up by the next sprint, then one of the flying Curuchet brother of Argentina was flying off the front with Martinello joining him. Who knows what the score is now or what sprint it is, but Martinello takes another and more points and continues joined by SWI, ARG, FRA, ESP, GER and CAN to get 90m then 125m with the bunch not responding, then takes the next sprint and another lap with 55 still to go! Laps down NZL and AUS have a go to no avail, apart from getting the next sprint, wherupon USA drops out and rides into the infield. More of the same or business as usual for ITA, SWI, ARG and FRA doing the legwork and getting the points until at 31 to go an announcement is made: three laps up are Llaneros ESP, Curuchet ARG, Ermenault FRA, Stocher AUT and Risi SWI. Two laps up are Martinello ITA, Walton CAN, Iakovlev UKR, Velasquez COL, O'Grady AUS and Rund GER. This is in fact wrong as Martinello is definitely up three because I saw him even if 10 commisaires did not. So now ARG is making another move and the pack is splintered in three. In this case, can a Points Race guru tell me if a chaser gets another lap when he gets to part II or part I of the bunch? Anyway, someone must have known as it seems the leaders did get on and the pack is all together again with 9 to go. The leaders take more points, the brothers Curuchet of ARG are off the front flying but with two to go the bunch is massing all over the place jockeying for position and Martinello is doing what he does best and making up for failing to win the Madison by taking the final sprint for double points and the gold medal. At least, his team knew he had the gold even if no-one else did for the next 10 minutes as they had the photographers lining up in front of him in the Italian camp long before the scoreboard roused from its deep and mysterious sleep to show the winners. But only after several tries. Will it ever show anyone with 4 laps up in points race again?
1. Silvio Martinello (Italy) 37 points 2. Bruno Risi (Switzerland) 16 3. Juan Llaneras (Spain) 15 4. Philippe Ermenault (France) 13 5. Gabriel Curuchet (Argentina) 12 6. Franz Stocher (Austria) 3 One lap behind: 7. Brian Walton (Canada) 22 Two laps behind: 8. Vasili Iakovlev (Ukraine) 18 9. Stuart O'Grady (Australia) 17 10. Michael Sandstod (Denmark) 10 11. Torhsten Rund (Germany) 2 Three laps behind: 12. Tomoya Kano (Japan) 8 13. Gary Anderson (New Zealand) 7 14. Glen Thomson (New Zealand) 6 15. Jose Velasquez (Colombia) 3 Four laps behind: 16. Jukka Heinikainen (Finland) 8 17. Richard Rozendaal (Netherlands) 7 18. Pavel Khamidouline (Russia) 6 19. Rene Jauris (Czech Republic) 5 20. Jaroslaw Rebiewski (Poland) 4 |