Cdn cyclist Whitten fourth in World Cup event
Posted February 19, 2012 6:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
By Jennifer Lukas
CTVOlympics.ca Staff
LONDON, England — Reigning world champion Tara Whitten narrowly missed adding a second medal to her team pursuit silver on Sunday, finishing fourth in the omnium at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in London. The test event on the 2012 Olympic track marked the first time the Edmonton, Alta., native had ever entered an omnium World Cup event and emerged without a medal for her efforts.
“I’m — in a way — happy that it happened at least once before the Olympics,” Whitten told CTVOlympics.ca following her final race. “I’ve kind of been getting the mistakes out of the way now instead of making them at the [Games].”
Omnium is a two-day competition in which cyclists accrue points based on their finishes in each of six events. The discipline, which makes its Olympic debut in London this summer, tests cyclists for speed, endurance and on-track tactics. The three athletes with the lowest number of points at the end of the competition each earn a position on the podium.
The morning after her teammate, Zach Bell, picked up a bronze medal in the men’s omnium, Whitten was set in second place with three events to go. In her first race on Sunday, she pedalled to a personal-best three minutes, 31.604 seconds in the individual pursuit to win the stage; it was good enough to boost Whitten into first place overall.
Next, however, was the scratch race. It was here, in the fifth stage of the competition, that things fell apart for the 31-year-old cyclist.
In a 10-kilometre, 22-athlete race where competitors receive points based upon which rider crosses the finish line first, Whitten led the pack for much of the race before running out of gas. She dropped to 12th in the final lap, racking up 12 points and dropping to third place in the competition.
“I just maybe used a bit too much energy and maybe in the wrong places and so I just wasn’t being effective with my power,” Whitten said. “I know I have more power than anybody out there. I just need to use it at the right times.
“Sometimes I think that racers are kind of divided into people who like to race head-to-head and people who like to race against the clock. I’ve always been a little bit better at racing against the clock.”
Whitten faced Great Britain’s Laura Trott in the final. A sold-out venue of British cycling fans cheered Trott to a winning time of 35.642 seconds, forcing Whitten into fourth place.
Trott went on to earn bronze behind American cyclist Sarah Hammer and Australia’s Annette Edmondson.
Great Britain had another big day on the track, adding three medals to bring its tally up to eight at the close of the four-day competition.
The highlight was a gold medal from Sir Chris Hoy, one of the faces of Team GB ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Hoy swept Germany’s Maximillian Levy in the sprint final — a one-on-one race in which each rider tries to manoeuvre, often slowly, into a gaining tactical advantage over the other.
Also Sunday, Monique Sullivan finished 11th in the women’s kierin.
The finish was an important one for Sullivan, who is trying to rank high enough internationally to qualify for her first Olympic Games. While Whitten, Bell and the women’s pursuit team are all but guaranteed their Olympic berths, Sullivan is on the bubble.
Track cyclists are ranked based on their finishes at international events. Sullivan’s next ranking opportunity will be the Pan American Continental Track Championships in March. Cyclists are able to gain points until April 8th, following the close of the 2012 World Track Cycling Championships in Australia.
CTVOlympics.ca’s Jennifer Lukas is in London this week, reporting on the UCI Track Cycling World Cup and Olympic test event from the Velodrome. Follow her updates on Twitter at @JenniferLukas and join in the conversation at @CTVOlympics.
