Sarah Hammer led the US to their first gold medal in women’s team pursuit before Britain’s Jonathan Dibben produced a thrilling climax to day three of the World Track Championships in the points race on Friday.
The 32-year-old Hammer, winner of five individual pursuit world titles in her illustrious career, steered rising stars Kelly Catlin, Chloe Dygert and Jennifer Valente to victory over a Canadian quartet, who hung on grimly, but could not keep up.
“It is very emotional. This is my eighth world title, but I have been waiting my whole career to get a first team title,” Hammer told reporters at the London Velodrome, where they had beaten world champions Australia in the semi-finals.
Photo: Reuters
“Doing it in a team, there is nothing like that. It is the fact that there is no one individual more important than another. It is one unit all working together,” she added.
Scratch race champion Laura Trott helped Olympic champions Britain clinch the bronze medal with victory over New Zealand.
However, the cheers for Trott were nothing compared with the deafening roars for Dibben, who won the 160-lap points race at the death to double the host nation’s gold-medal tally.
The often puzzling tactical race, which awards points for intermediate sprints every 10 laps, looked as though it was heading to Austria’s Andreas Graf.
Dibben then won the penultimate sprint and, knowing he needed to win the final one to pip Graf, produced a sensational burst of raw acceleration to snatch it.
“Winning a world title in your home country — it does not get much better,” said Dibben, who suffered heartbreak a day earlier when Britain were pipped to team pursuit gold by Australia.
Italy’s Filippo Ganna won the men’s individual pursuit, beating Domenic Weinstein who had been hoping to land a third gold of the championships for Germany.
Andy Tennant won an all-British battle for bronze over Owain Doull to take his first individual world championship medal.
World record holder Anastasiia Voinova of Russia retained her 500m time trial title with a blistering ride, clocking 32.959 seconds to add another gold to the women’s team sprint title she claimed on Wednesday.
Britain’s Mark Cavendish, juggling his road schedule to try to qualify for the Rio Games, where he hopes to earn a first Olympic medal, completed the first three events of the omnium in seventh place.
Tour de France sprint king Cavendish moved up the leaderboard when he finished second in the elimination race.
Cavendish has been given a podium target in the omnium to snatch a place on the Olympic track team.
Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria Rendon led the standings from Italian Elia Viviani ahead of yesterday’s 1km time trial, flying lap and points race.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
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Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB