European Track Championships 2006

 

July 19-23; Athens Olympic Velodrome

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Junior Womens Points Race

 

Lizzie Armitstead show she is a racer at heart and here positions herself just ahead of multiple gold medallist van Hage of Holland as a sprint approaches. Despite scoring as many points as the silver and bronze medallists, the Yorkshire young lady lost out on a countback based on the final sprint.

 

The big news for this event was that GB's Katie Curtis woke up sick and was forced to abandon starting her first event of the championship whilst Junior World Scratch Race silver medallist Lizzie Armitstead rode the morning final for the Junior Women's Point race.

The Otley rider came out well up for this and made sure she remained near the front as the race warmed up approaching the first sprint where she took control of the bunch with a lap to go, holding them off to take the 5 points and go straight to the top of the leader board.

The Dutch then took control of the race, and whilst Lizzie and the rest struggled to contain them, the race went through a frantic period before coming back together again prior to the next sprint won by the Italian Castoldi. More attacks followed and the following sprint saw the points go to the Belarusian Amialiusik who was away off the front and followed over the line by a small group before the race came back together for sprint number 4.

Riders were getting twitchy and nervous now and in a back straight melee, a number of riders crashed whilst Lizzie managed to stay upright and win the next sprint to go to 10 points and top of the leader board. There were 19 laps left to go and the race was starting to fragment as the fatigue set it from quite an aggressive race.

More and more attacks were forthcoming but none managed to stay clear and it was Dutch sprinter Van Hage who then proceeded to win the next sprint to give her one more point that Lizzie. The final sprint was going to be important and with six to go and one rider clear, Lizzie put herself at the front and out of trouble. A lap later though Lizzie was back in the group and boxed in whilst the Dutch riders put themselves on the front for the benefit of Van Hage.

Lizzie though managed to get herself out of the box she was in and with four to go, hit the front. A Belarusian rider then took up the chase of a lone attacker before all hell let loose as the sprint started two laps out with the Russsians doing a lot of damage as they turned the gas on and Lizzie finding herself going backwards.

Into the final bend and it was the Dutch girl Van Hagen who had recovered well from the attack by the Russians by winning the sprint easily to clinch overall victory whilst behind, Lizzie came in just behind the Russians. What followed were some disqualifications and relegations and with that came a point for Lizzie for the final sprint but it wasn't enough and she was fourth on a count back based on the final sprint.

Talking about the final sprint, Lizzie explained, "It was a bit dodgy out there and I got boxed in. I thought I could get through a gap on the inside but she dropped down in front of me."

"I never really felt good in the race. I have a really dry throat and when you're tired you make stupid mistakes which makes it even harder. I just didn't have it. When we found out today the race was going to be 60 laps and Katie wasn't riding, we knew we had to score points."

Lizzie then told us the pace of the race felt really fast and at time she was struggling to hold wheels after having not felt 100 per cent all week, although Lizzie does admit it was never serious enough to stop her racing.

 

 

Lizzie sprints it out with Russian Romanyuta.

 

Start of Lizzie's race which was held in the morning.