Sydney Track World Cup - CDM

Sydney, Australia, May 14 - 16, 2004

Event program and results    Men's Keirin

Women's Keirin

Shuang takes keirin gold

Reed is World Cup champ

By Karen Forman in Sydney

Shuang Guo (China)
Photo ©: Mark Gunter

It may have been the last race of the program on the long second day of the UCI Track World Cup in Sydney, but the women's keirin final certainly wasn't a wind-down event.

The riders - Australian Rebecca Ellis, Chinese Guo Shuang and Ng Li, German Katrina Meinke, Russian Anastasia Chulkova and American Jennie Reed - were determined to hit it and hit it hard and once the derny moved up the track, they did.

In the end it was Shuang taking the gold in a fast final sprint to the line, ahead of Reed and Meinke. The silver medal gave Reed the points she needed to take the series championship for the discipline.

For 18 year old Shuang, who has trained in Switzerland at the national cycling centre for the past three years after being talent-scouted at school, it was a bittersweet win.

"Yes I won this but I lost the sprint," she said. "The sprint was the most important for me. I feel I am strong in both sprint and keirin but . . . I wanted to do well in the sprint."

Shuang has now qualified for the world championships, where she merely said she hoped to "do my best". Her long term goal is the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing - in front of a home crowd. "I was a member of the national team in Beijing before I went to Switzerland."

Reed, 26 from Seattle, was smiling after receiving her World Cup championship jersey and silver medal for tonight's ride, but was disappointed that she hadn't chosen a larger gear. "I rode a 90 tonight, a bit of an experiment for the world championships, but it was too small," she said. "I normally ride 92-94.

"I couldn't get on top of it tonight, but oh, you learn."

She's also disappointed there's no keirin to ride in Athens - "I wish there was, I love it, it's really my favourite race".

But she'll get to ride it in Melbourne and the sprint, as well. Not that she's all that confident about being selected for Athens. "I think it will be very close," she said. "There will be no room for mistakes."

Qualifying
 
Heat 1

1 Jennie Reed (USA)                               11.907 (60.469 km/h)
2 Anastasia Chulkova (Russia)
3 Shuang Guo (China)
4 Evgenia Radanova (Bulgaria)
 
Heat 2
 
1 Katrin Meinke (Germany)                         12.268 (58.689 km/h)
2 Rebecca Ellis (Australia)
3 Oxana Grishina (Russia)
4 Na Li (China)
 
Round 1 Repechage
 
1 Shuang Guo (China)                              12.719 (56.608 km/h)
2 Na Li (China)
3 Evgenia Radanova (Bulgaria)
4 Oxana Grishina (Russia)
 
Final
 
1 Shuang Guo (China)                              12.237 (58.838 km/h)
2 Jennie Reed (USA)
3 Katrin Meinke (Germany)
4 Anastasia Chulkova (Russia)
5 Rebecca Ellis (Australia)
6 Na Li (China)