Emily Nelson and Mark Stewart won gold medals in the elimination race and individual pursuit respectively, as the Great Britain Cycling Team made a strong start to the UEC Junior and Under-23 Track European Championships in Portugal.
Emily Nelson recovered from a mass crash in the opening lap of the under-23 women’s elimination race to take the title with a dominant performance.
Nelson, a world Madison silver medallist, outclassed the rest of the field, almost taking the final head to head lap as a lap of honour, as she crossed the line to take gold.
Mark Stewart caught Portugal’s Miguel Do Rego Pereira with 9.5 laps of the 16 lap time trial still to race and qualified in 4:18.926, setting up a tantalising final with home favourite Ivo Oliveira.
Stewart gradually chipped away at his opponent in the gold medal final, finishing three seconds ahead of the Portuguese rider and taking his first individual European gold medal.
Jenny Holl rode a tactically superb race in the junior women's scratch race final, hanging off the back of the field as the leaders rode conservatively at the front.
Holl made her move on the inside of the pack with three laps to go, leading out the sprint and crossed the line in a photo finish - taking a bronze and the first junior medal for Great Britain.
Will Tidball was unlucky not to come away with a medal in the junior men's scratch race, having been involved in a prolonged break at the front of the race and narrowly missing out in the final sprint.
Ellie Dickinson rode herself into the gold medal final in the under-23 women’s individual pursuit qualifying round.
The final went to form as Dickinson started characteristically strongly but was eventually pegged back by Poland’s Justyna Kaczkowska, winning Great Britain’s first silver medal of the competition.
Great Britain's Megan Barker finished the competition in eighth place in a time of 3:43.599 for the three kilometre time trial.
In the team sprint finals, the junior women's duo of Georgia Hilleard and Lauren Bate beat the team from Poland to take the bronze medal for Great Britain, bringing the first day's medal total to five for the team.
The junior men’s team of Alistair Fielding, Lewis Stewart and Hamish Turnbull were riding in the fifth and sixth place team sprint final and outpaced their Greek opponents, in a time of 45.984 seconds, securing themselves fifth place.
Both the junior team sprint squads broke the British junior record in their finals, indicating a very bright future for British sprinting.
Good day 1 at euros in Anadia. British records for both junior team sprints and bronze for the girls! @BritishCycling pic.twitter.com/lXEou4ER9E
— Kevin Stewart (@KevinDStewart) July 18, 2017
The junior women’s team pursuit squad’s qualifying time of 4.42.473 was fourth fastest of the day so Anna Docherty, Jenny Holl, Jess Roberts and Lauren Dolan will race the first round tomorrow, still in the hunt for a medal.
The quartet of Rhys Britton, Joe Nally, Jake Stewart, Fred Wright qualified second fastest in the junior men’s team pursuit in 4:09.261 - they race again in the first round tomorrow.
Results
U23 women elimination U23 men IP U23 women IP Jnr women team sprint
Jnr men team sprint Jnr men scratch Jnr women scratch
Gallery
