Antipodes cyclists stole the show on the third day of the track cycling program at the Athens Olympics yesterday with Sarah Ulmer winning gold in world record time, the crack Australian team pursuiters on the verge of gold and two other Australians fastest qualifiers in their events.
Ulmer, the unpretentious New Zealander, received a rapturous ovation from the Velodrome crowd for clearing away to win the women’s 3000-meter pursuit gold medal in her second world record ride in as many days. The 28-year-old Kiwi surpassed her own day-old record set in qualifying with a new time of three minutes 24.537 seconds in decimating Australian Katie Mactier in the gold medal final. Australia’s all-conquering world champion pursuit team were closing in on a gold medal after smashing their world record in qualifying for Sunday’s final.
They crushed the Lithuanian team in a new world record of three minutes 56.342 seconds Sunday and are red-hot favorites to take gold in the ride-off against Britain.
The Australian team of Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster, Brad McGee and Luke Roberts shattered the team’s previous world record of 3:57.280 set at the 2003 world championships in Stuttgart. And there may be more gold medals in the offing for Australia with Anna Meares, the new 500m time trial Olympic champion, tracking a golden double after finishing fastest into the quarter-finals of the women’s sprint.
Meares takes on German Katrin Meinke in the last eight with Natallia Tsylinskaya of Belarus facing up to Russian Svetlana Grankovskaya in another quarterfinal.
Even though she set a world record in the time trial on Friday, Meares prefers the sprint, in which riders battle with each tactically over three laps before a dash to the line.
Australian Ryan Bayley was the best performer in early qualifying for the men’s sprint setting a withering 10.177sec in the solo flying 200m and could have broken Australian Gary Neiwand’s Olympic record of 10.129. But he gave himself extra work when he flew high on the track coming around the bends at 70kph. Bayley will line up against Barry Forde of Barbados in Sunday’s quarterfinals with Dutch world champion Theo Bos taking on Britain’s Ross Edgar, German Rene Wolff facing Poland’s Damian Zielinski and Mickael Bourgain and Laurent Gane meeting in an all-French duel.
Ulmer was the star with his world record-breaking performances to claim the women’s pursuit.
In just three months she has whittled six seconds off the world record she set of 3:30.604 on the way to defeating Mactier in the pursuit final of the Melbourne world championships last May. In a symbolic changing of the baton, Ulmer has been crowned the new queen of pursuiting while former Olympic champion and world record holder Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel bowed gracefully out of the Olympics with a bronze medal.
