STUTTGART, Germany, 2 August 2003 — Olympic and world champion Leontien Zijlaard-Van Moorsel defended her world individual pursuit title here at the world track cycling championships yesterday. Australian Katie Mactier came second to claim silver with Russian Olga Slusareva taking the bronze.
Dutch rider Van Moorsel timed 3min 32.657sec in a thrilling final which the 28-year-old Australian champion, a professional road rider who only tried out track a few months ago, had led for the first half.
However, Van Moorsel picked up the pace in the latter half of the 4000-meter race and managed to turn around a 0.8sec deficit at the halfway stage to her advantage.
Mactier had set a great time of 3:31.5 in the morning round where she booked her final place and her efforts there seemed to leave her short as the Dutch champion bore down. Mactier finished in 3:33.748 but will be more than happy with the silver medal having only tried track while she was in Australia waiting for a visa to travel to America with her professional road team Saturn. Slusareva, 34, one of the most successful women track riders still competing, set the best time of the evening session in 3:31.938 to hold off Sarah Ulmer of New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Australia coach Shayne Bannan said he remains optimistic despite a series of disappointing results for his team.
Australia dominated the competition in Copenhagen last year but have so far failed to win a gold medal after three days of competition and now only have one rider left at the relatively early stages of the sprint event.
However Bannan, whose real job is to prime his talent-rich team of trackies for the Olympics in Athens next year, isn’t fretting despite watching his men fail to match the pace of the French in the blue riband sprint event.
