ICU Junior Track World championships

Wheels where spinning, crowds where roaring as the second night of the ‘ICU Junior Track World championships’ commenced at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome at the new Emirates arena, also where the 2014 Commonwealth Games will be staged.

The international competition standard venue and elite training facility provides a platform to build on the phenomenal success of Sir Chris Hoy and it did so on the second night of competition especially for Great Britain’s Danielle Khan and Great Britain’s women’s pursuit team.

The evening session begun with a scintillating Women’s 500m, where the star of the whole competition, Danielle Khan took a plausible lead, taking 2 seconds off the best time and gaining a well deserved gold with a time of 35.456 seconds. Melissandre Pain (Fra), European champion took silver with time of 35.926 seconds followed by bronze medallist Tian Beckett (Aus) who gained bronze medal position with 36.132 seconds.

The place had erupted as Danielle Khan took the well deserved gold in her home country. Next on the track was the most tactical and riveting discipline, the scratch race. The winning position was established by Germany’s Manuel Porzner who made a wise decision by shooting off on lap 19 with 21 laps to go and this resulted in an untouchable position after lapping the field. Even with further attacks from the other opponents. Manuel Porzners lead was beyond reach resulting in Haggerty (NZI) taking silver and Chile’s only entrant, Cristian Cornejo taking bronze.

In the Men’s individual pursuit Matt Gibson of Great Britain who was one to watch, put up a fight to gain a medal however he was beaten by Pavel Chursin who took bronze. Then approached team mates, Zachary Shaw and and Callum Scotston from Australia racing for gold and silver. Shaw gained the gold with a time of 3:21.132 seconds while team mate Callum Scotston delightfully netted silver medal position with a time of 3:24.132 seconds.

Our first fall of the night came around on the final of the Men’s Keirin race from Benjamin Gil (Fra), the race was then restarted. Gorlov (Rus) opened an unbeatable gap ahead of the Czech rider, Snasel and team mate Dubchenko and achieved gold while Snasel gained silver and Dubchenko crossed the line third, taking bronze.

Last but not least, the most exceptional race of the night was the Women’s Team Pursuit where Russia and Great Britain fought for the gold. Before that in the bronze play-off between Australia and the Italians, the Australians gave the race of their life setting a new World Record of 4:38.246 but not for long as both Great Britain and Russia fearlessly attacked the track fighting to take gold. Russia speeded away with a lead of 0.332 until Great Britain strived for victory procuring a new World Record time of 4:36.147.

The gold medallists of the Women’s team pursuit described themselves as being “on top of the world” and indeed they where! They also mentioned how the crowd was a massive influence to their victory and shared their views on the Velordrome as they said, “It is amazing to have this in our own country, it is an amazing facility and to win a world championship where the 2014 Commonwealth games will be held is also amazing.”

The night had displayed the hard work and dedication the athletes possessed and I applaud their efforts towards sport.