Location: Manchester Velodrome, National Cycling Centre
Event: October 6-14 2012
Report: Larry Hickmott
The final day of racing at the 2012 UCI World Masters Track Cycling Championships saw a variety of racing including team sprints for men and women, pursuiting and a brutal scratch race for the very prestigious Muratti Cup.
Men's 135+ team sprint
The popular team sprint event saw yet another battle between Australia and Britain with the Aussies winning by the narrowest of margins to add to their growing collection of gold medals from this event.
With two of the record holding riders in the Aussie trio, the Australian’s were favourites but the British riders Neil Potter, Neil Campbell and back after his high speed crash the other day, Dave Le Grys, had the crowd on their side and hunger for the Gold.
It showed as they gave it everything and went quicker in the final but then so did the Aussies and it was them that got the rainbow jerseys to take back to the other side of the world.
Gold/silver ride off
1. Australia - 48.042
WHITE Gavin, MURRAY Chris, STOKER Geoff
beat
2. Team Silvia 48.148
CAMPBELL Neil, POTTER Neil, LEGRYS David
Bronze medal ride off
3. Brooks Cycles – Blue - GBR 49.453
WELCH Adam, HOULTON Phil, CRONSHAW Steve
4. USA Team #1 49.626
STEIN Brent, LACORTE Andrew, VOSS Rich
Men’s 60-64 pursuit
American visitor Steven Worley won the men’s 60-64 Pursuit in a see-sawing battle in the final with Frenchman Gérard-Louis Robert who has been at the forefront of every race he has ridden this week.
Another rider who’s also been at the sharp end of the races in this category, Britain’s Steve Davies won the bronze medal after a week where he explained he’s not been well and riding under par. That hasn’t stopped him winning two medals in his events. Davies beat Wendell Bole of South Africa.
Gold/silver
1. WORLEY Steven USA 2:29.218 48.252
2. ROBERT Gérard-Louis FRA 2:29.902 48.031
Bronze
3. DAVIES Steve GBR 2:30.099 47.968
4. BOLE Wendell RSA 2:36.361 46.047
Men’s 65-69 pursuit
Steffen Munch Hansen added yet another gold to his collection this week by decisively winning the Men’s 65-69 pursuit against Britain’s Michael Allen. In the race for the bronze medal, Frenchman Michel Briat saw off the challenge of David Rutherford in a race that went down to the wire.
Gold/silver
1. HANSEN Steffen Munch DEN 2:34.868 46.491
2. ALLEN Michael GBR 2:37.519 45.709
Bronze
3. BRIAT Michel FRA 2:37.761 45.639
4. RUTHERFORD David GBR 2:38.097 45.542
Men’s 70-74 pursuit
Defending champion Guido Lupo was beaten to the gold medal in the final of the men’s 70-74 pursuit by Leo Mensetrina of the USA in a close tussle over the 2,000 metres. In the all British final for the Bronze medal, Peter Robertson just scrapped through by the odd tenth of a second against Brian Newton.
Gold/silver
1. MENESTRINA Leo USA 2:39.989 45.003
2. LUPO Guido ITA 2:41.202 44.6645
Bronze
3. ROBERTSON Peter GBR 2:50.126 42.3216
4. NEWTON Brian GBR 2:50.310 42.2758
Men 75+ pursuit
With only three qualifiers, all the riders were assured of a medal but for the two fastest, a second ride was required to find out who would win what colour.
With the bronze going to Roy Savery as the third fastest qualifier, the Gold/Silver final saw a France versus Britain final. In the end though it was an easy victory for the Frenchman Raymond Pelle, almost five seconds quicker than David Sankey.
Gold/silver
1. PELLE Raymond FRA 2:53.696 41.452
2. SANKEY David GBR 2:58.201 40.404
Bronze
3. SAVERY Roy GBR
Women’s team sprint (Pilot event)
Final
1. Great Britain - GBR 36.494
BIRKMYRE Janet, CHISHOLM Alison
2. Silver Brooks Belles - GBR 36.970
COOPER Julie, CAPEWELL Deborah
3. South Africa - RSA 38.038
GIANCHINO Elisa, WENHOLD Annerine
4. Team Bush - GBR 39.375
MULLAN Siobahn, SAINSBURY-MUNN Emma
Open Muratti Cup
One of the most historic cups to race for in cycling is the Murrati Cup and this year’s event when to an Australian, Daniel Hennsey. The race with riders of all ages and a woman too, Siobhan Mullen, didn’t take long to get going with two riders going clear and for a while the race was in chaos as the chase for them saw the field split all over the place.
The frantic action was too much for many and the number of riders on the track started to shrink as many pulled off the track completely spent by the speed on the boards. The two leaders and then four chasers soon lapped the field which meant that if things stayed that way, the race would stay be between those six riders; Brinton, Campbell, Ahumada, Ravasio, Williams, and Hennessy.
With historic footage of the original Muratti Cup showing on the big screen, there was brief lull before it all kicked off again after the mid race sprint for a cash prize and soon there were four riders going for another lap. The four were already a lap up but being greedy for more leeway over their rivals, they pushed the pace up another notch and were soon on their way to gaining another lap.
The four, Hennesy, Williams, Ravasio and Ahumada soon made the junction and the race, with less than 20 laps left, seemed to be between these four riders.
Everything seemed to be heading for a sprint between them when a crash with only eight laps to go reduced the field even more and saw the race neutralised for a while. Once the fallen were up on their feet, the race resumed and in the rush to the line, John McClelland was quickest but at two laps down, that was only good enough seventh place while of the four leaders, Daniel Hennessy was the quickest to the line to take the win and the prize of this famous trophy.
1. HENNESSY Daniel AUS
2. WILLIAMS Kenny USA
3. RAVASIO Guiseppe ITA
4 AHUMADA Rolando ARG
@ 1 lap
5. BRINTON David USA 1
6. CAMPBELL Neil GBR 1
@ 2 laps
7. MCCLELLAND John GBR
8. STEIN Brent USA
9. PICCO Alessandro ITA
10. LILLEY Ralph GBR
11. ELLIS Christian GBR
12. MULLEN Siobhan GBR
