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.
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