Team Germany
Photo ©: Mitch Friedman

No major upsets in sprint and pursuit qualifying

By Eddie Monnier

The morning session on the second day of racing at the Los Angeles World Cup saw qualifying races in the men's team pursuit, men's sprint and women's individual pursuit.

Day 2 of the Los Angeles World Cup opened with the men's team pursuit. Many countries seemed content to give their younger team members a chance to ride this event and that may have contributed to most teams losing a rider along the way. Powered by individual pursuit winner Robert Bartko, Germany didn't drop its fourth rider until a half lap to go to deliver the fastest time of 4:13.143, just 0.331 seconds ahead of next-best New Zealand. The Ukrainian team rode a 4:14.032 and will face Australia, which qualified with a 4:14.798. The team pursuit finals Saturday evening should be quite a nail biter.

Arnaud Tournant (France)
Photo ©: Mike Novitch

The men continued the show with flying 200 meters to seed the sprint tournament. With three dozen riders participating, the competition would be tough to make the top 16 and advance to the 1/8 finals. Fastest of the day was Arnaud Tournant (France) who rode a blistering 10.445 (68.933 km/h) to just edge out teammate Mickael Bourgain, who scorched a 10.494 (68.611 km/h). Five other riders posted sub-10.6's.

With current US national sprint champion Michael Blatchford still recovering from a nasty training fall several weeks ago, Christian Stahl and Giddeon Massie stepped up to fill the void, qualifying with a 10.793 (66.710 km/h) and 10.811 (66.599 km/h) for 12th and 13th, respectfully. Kin Chung Wong (Hong Kong) rode a 10.873 to grab the final qualifying spot from big-man Sean Eadie. Australia's other fast man, Ben Kersten, also failed to qualify.

The 1/8 finals provided plenty of excitement but no upsets. Top-seeded Tournant again set the fastest time, winning his heat over Wong with a 10.917 (65.952). Teun Mulder (Netherlands) put the pressure on Matthias John (Germany) who rode an 11.028 to win their heat and set the second fastest 1/8 Finals time.

Josiah Ng (Malaysia) hit the deck when trying to tuck back behind Jose Antonio Villanueva (Spain). In the re-ride, Josiah jumped into the lead early to try to ride from the front. Although he gave it his best effort, the third place finisher in the keirin proved too fast. There were obviously no hard feelings between the riders for the earlier mishap as they shook hands several times and encouraged applause for each other.

Katie Mactier (Australia)
Photo ©: Mitch Friedman

With just one heat remaining, it looked as if women's points race winner from the prior evening, Erin Mirabella (USA) might make it to the gold medal ride with her then second-fastest qualifying time of 3:48.066. But Olympic individual pursuit silver medalist from Athens Katie Mactier (Australia) had other ideas and stormed to a 3:38.491 to set the fastest qualifying time by over six seconds. Amazingly, she gained four of those six seconds with a fierce kick in the final kilometer. Mactier will face Emma Davies (Great Britain; 3:44.676) in the gold/silver final, while Mirabella will face Elena Chalykh (Russia; 3:48.448) in what should prove to be a close ride for the bronze.