Barker misses opportunity to make her mark in the omnium
Welsh rider has to be content with fifth place Kenny and Archibald want to add to team pursuit gold
Elinor Barker missed the chance to lay down a marker in the omnium on day two of London’s round of the UCI Track World Cup.
The Welsh rider finished fifth in the multi-discipline event as GB’s coaching team continue to rotate their riders to give them all an opportunity to show what they can do with two years to go until Tokyo 2020. Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald both took omnium gold in the Canadian and German rounds of the winter series.
Barker will be sorely disappointed, although the margins are fine. The Rio Olympic team pursuit champion sat out that event on Friday in order to better prepare for yesterday’s omnium. And she was handily placed heading into the evening session, having finished fourth in the scratch race and seventh in the tempo. However, she had a disappointing elimination race, finding herself boxed in with 11 riders remaining and exiting far earlier than she would have hoped.
That left her in fifth place overall heading into the final points race, which is very much her speciality with Barker having won the world points race title in Hong Kong last year.
She was well marked, though. She grabbed a handful of sprint points but was unable to gain the lap she needed to catch the front three of Holland’s Kirsten Wild, American Jennifer Valente or Allison Beveridge of Canada.
Three days of action at London’s Olympic velodrome will draw to a close today with the crowds hoping the British team have saved their best for last.
Barker’s fellow Olympic champions Kenny and Archibald, who won team pursuit gold together on the opening night on Friday, team up again for the final event of the weekend, the crowdpleasing Madison race this evening.
The Madison sees a field of riders hand-sling each other around the track for 20km (80 laps) with sprints thrown in every 10 laps for additional points.
There is more than just pride at stake. With the event making its return to the Olympic programme in Tokyo in two years’ time – for the first time ever for women – every competition at an elite level event such as this represents an opportunity for riders to shine. It is why Barker will be so disappointed with her performance on the day, and it is why Kenny and Archibald will be hoping to perform for the home crowd.
Kenny has already stated her intention to “treble up” in Tokyo – team pursuit, omnium and Madison.
“At the minute, I still prefer the omnium to the Madison, mainly because I’m still learning the Madison,” she told The Sunday Telegraph last week. “It just takes a lot of learning. In the Euros [European Championships] I know we came fourth but it didn’t go very well. I didn’t feel very good in the race. I didn’t know what I was doing.
“We raced nationals [in October] and that was the first race I went into with a plan, where me and Ellie [Dickinson] worked out where we needed to change, who we wanted [to target] in the sprints. Then in Berlin [earlier this month], on the start line I was terrified. This was the next level up from Euros. But it went well.”
Kenny was not fond of the omnium
‘I’m still learning the Madison. It just takes a lot of learning. I didn’t know what I was doing’
at first either. Now she has won two Olympic golds in the multi-discipline event, so there is nothing to stop her becoming a Madison afficionado.
“If you’d asked me in 2010 if I wanted to do the omnium, I’d have said ‘no chance’,” she laughed. “I remember doing the flying lap and I didn’t even get out of the saddle, it was just horrible.”
Asked which of the omnium or the Madison she would pick if she could pick just one additional event to do in Tokyo, on top of the team pursuit, Kenny replied: “Right now I would choose the omnium, because I’ve done it so many times. But I’m really looking forward to the Madison. The crowds in London are unbelievable.”
The men’s Madison produced a wonderful race with Matt Walls and Fred Wright emerging with a silver medal thanks to a brilliant finish. Walls and Wright consistently attacked in the sprints before surging away from the field at the finish to finish ahead of Spain. Denmark took gold.
There was less good news in the women’s sprint, with Katy Marchant and Lauren Bate unable to reach the medal races last night.