Track giants France staked their claim for one of the most coveted Olympic track crowns when Gregory Bauge claimed his third straight sprint gold at the world championships in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, on Friday.
Bauge, who plans to make the London Olympics his swansong, was imperial as he comfortably ousted Britain’s Jason Kenny 2-0 in the final of the blue riband event.
Kenny, the Olympic silver medalist in Beijing, had caused a minor sensation by ousting Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy 2-0 in the semi-final to secure his final spot.
Photo: Reuters
However, when it came to the final the 23-year-old Englishman was outclassed — both tactically and in terms of speed — by the 26-year-old Frenchman of Caribbean heritage.
“At the end of the day, he had a lot more horsepower when he came into that last three quarters of a lap. He’s probably one of the stongest guys in the world on a bike,” Kenny later said.
Hoy later made amends when he got the better of Frenchman Mickael Bourgain in a third leg decider to take the bronze medal.
However, the fact he failed to make the final will only fuel speculation as to who will represent Britain’s men in the Olympics next year. Only one sprint place is allocated to each country.
As France celebrated their second gold, having won the team sprint, Australian Cameron Meyer’s bid for a third gold in the points race was ended by crafty Colombian Avila Alcibiades.
Meyer was marked throughout the race as Alcibiades was given some support from fellow south Americans after having lapped the field to take 20 precious points.
Meyer took the silver, with Frenchman Morgan Kneisky making a late surge to secure the bronze ahead of Russian Alexander Khatuntsev.
“It’s definitely not the result I wanted, I wanted a third gold medal,” Meyer said.
“The Colombian rode a good race and deserved the win, he lapped the field and took the 20 points and later on in the race I didn’t have the legs to lap the field when I wanted to,” Meyer said. “Maybe I’ll get a chance to reclaim the title on home soil next year.”
Friday’s third final provided more drama, with American Sarah Hammer launching a stunning fight to defend her 3km pursuit title against New Zealand’s Alison Shanks.
Shanks had led from the outset, taking a 0.2 second lead at the 1km mark to a massive one second advantage four laps later. However, Hammer launched a late rally to win in 3 minutes, 32.933 seconds, with Vilija Serekaite beating Kiwi Jaime Nielsen for the bronze.
“I knew it was going to come down to the last 500m, the last lap. We both wanted it so bad,” Hammer said. “We both had one hand on the jersey and in the end it was just about who was going to tear it away.”
As Bauge lapped up the plaudits and virtually secured his place for London 2012, Britain’s track chiefs have some weeding out to do.
Kenny believes the sprint selection battle will go right to the wire.
“I don’t think there’s really an order as such. Everyone’s all so close, we’re swapping and changing, training session by training session, not even race by race,” Kenny said. “I think it will come down to the last minute to make sure we get the right guy.”
Hoy, who won three Olympic golds in Beijing in the sprint, team sprint and keirin, admitted he was missing race experience this season. However, he believes he will be on track for London.
“There were four nations in the top 11. If this was Olympic selection based on today, you would be missing [Mickael] Bourgain, [Kevin] Sireau, [Michael] D’Almeida and Matt Crampton,” the Scot said. “To me it shows that the Olympics won’t be the same competition that the worlds will be next year.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier