20-year-old Ethan Hayter wins bronze in the men’s omnium on Saturday evening at the 2019 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.
The European omnium champion got off to a flying start, coming fourth in the scratch race and winning the tempo race, leaving him top of the omnium standings at the half-way point.
A successful morning was added to by a frustrating performance in round three the elimination race where he finished seventh before heading into the evening’s points race and omnium final round.
Adding to his silver medal in the team pursuit on Thursday evening, Hayter raced hard to gain as many sprint points as possible in the final race, but unknowingly let his nearest competitor by two points, New Zealand’s Campbell Stewart disappear up the track with France’s Ben Thomas who were able to take a lap and gain 20.
BRONZE FOR BRITAIN @ethan_hayter is beaten to silver on the line after a dramatic finish to the Men's Omnium #Pruszkow2019 pic.twitter.com/1GIE5USHkJ
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) March 2, 2019
It came down to the final sprint as Hayter sat in the silver medal position, five points clear of Thomas. He would however be beaten on the line by Thoams, the double sprint points in the final sprint going against Hayter, losing out by one point to Thomas.
Hayter said post-race:
“I’m a little disappointed right now, because I wanted to be world champion in the omnium. But also, to justify myself over three other riders, who aren’t worse than me. I’ll look back on it and be quite happy, it’s a good result and good ranking points for the Olympics.
“I should have followed him [Stewart], I had the legs to do it. I started to hurt a little, and usually I’d zip on too little things like that, and I think it was just a mistake with the pressure getting to me a little bit. I wanted someone else to close the gap, but they were more knackered than I was.
“I’ve done the team pursuit and the omnium so far; and a silver and a bronze isn’t ideal but it’s a good result to build on.”
The madison pairing of Elinor Barker and Neah Evans could only manage fourth in the women’s race, missing out on a late attack by the Danish team who won the bronze medal.
Barker said of that attack after the race: “Yeah really annoyed because we knew that was going to happen, [a Denmark attack], but I just didn’t have the legs to go with it.
“They had a really good jump and I just couldn’t go with it, I was right next to them. We knew it was going to happen within 40 laps, they’ve done it throughout the world cup season. So yeah, really disappointed with that moment actually.”
Their race wasn’t helped after Evans became entangled with another rider, crashing half-way through the 120 laps. Once Evans jumped straight back to her feet, another crash involving a rider from New Zealand forced the race to be temporarily stopped.
Evans having to cope with the stoppages explained post-race:
“I feel just before that [crash] happened, we had been a little bit on the back foot and just starting to get forward and make our presence felt.
Then that [other crash] happened and the rhythm that we were building, it went again, so a bit unfortunate timing. But it was a very sketchy race overall,” said Evans.
Newly-crowned scratch race world champion on Wednesday and silver medallist in the team pursuit on Thursday, Barker entered her third race of the weekend as Britain’s most decorated rider at this year’s championships.
The welsh rider was appointed partner to Evans on the morning of the race, after Katie Archibald was withdrawn from the race on medical advice. After Barker said:
“No, I wasn’t really [prepared for the race], I’d gone into holiday mode already a little bit and never thought I’d be doing [the race].
Well done to @neahevans and @elinorbarker just missing out on the medals in the women’s madison! Post race reaction from them pic.twitter.com/lX6BTRSDmd
— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) March 2, 2019
“I probably should have got my head in the game a little bit more when Katie did the omnium yesterday, which also wasn’t expected, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high and then I just wasn’t very prepared for it if I’m honest. Which is my own fault really.”
Archibald having suffered a crash in the point’s race of the women’s omnium yesterday, Stephen Park, performance director for British Cycling, said:
“Katie was involved in a heavy crash yesterday and, after an initial assessment from our doctor on the track, was deemed fit to carry on racing. However, a reassessment this morning showed Katie has developed signs of concussion and therefore has been withdrawn from the Madison on medical advice.
“As she expressed yesterday should this decision be made, Katie is extremely disappointed not to race today. However, the welfare of our athletes is paramount, and we have a concussion policy in place to follow when such incidents occur.”
In the afternoon session Great Britain was in action in the men’s sprint competition with last year’s silver medallist Jack Carlin and British national sprint champion, Joe Truman.
Carlin suffered an exit in the competition in the 1/8th final to Russia’s Denis Dmitriev. The Scottish-rider was beaten by inches on the line after being forced to take the race from the front.
Joe Truman won his heat of the 1/8th finals but was suddenly relegated for exiting the sprinter’s line to Australia’s Nathan Hart. Neither rider would progress to the evening session.
In the women’s individual pursuit, a time of 3:34.149 for Ellie Dickinson was only good enough for eight overall in the women's 3km individual pursuit. Emily Nelson would finish 10th in the competition, 2.5 seconds behind her teammate.
Victoria Williamson was back in action after competing with Katy Marchant in the team sprint on the first day of competition.
Marchant would end up finishing in 14th in the women’s 500m time trial, two tenths of a second from qualification.
Teammate Williamson who is competing at her first championships since a life-threating crash three years ago, finished 22nd.
