Showing fatigue in what was his third race of the track world championships, Ireland’s Martyn Irvine came up short overnight in his push for another medal, finishing sixth in a very hard-fought points race in the velodrome in Cali, Colombia.
The 2013 world scratch race champion missed crucial moves which saw key rivals gain up to three laps on the rest of the field. He was later able to gain a lap himself, but with twenty points on offer for each lap gained by the others, he was facing a very difficult task to get back on terms with those ahead of him.
Irvine won the fifth, thirteenth and fourteenth sprints, netting five points for each, but five riders ultimately ended up with a higher final points total.
The Colombian rider Edwin Avila took a big home victory, ending up with 70 points and beating the Kiwi runner-up Thomas Scully by four points. Spain's Eloy Teruel took bronze with 58, while Irvine finished on 35.
His performance is nevertheless a very respectable one, given that he faced two long periods of time off the bike in the past year. He fractured his femur in March and then crashed heavily in the Ghent Six day in November, causing a muscle to become separated from a bone in his hip.
Earlier in the evening, Caroline Ryan also notched up a sixth place in the women's individual pursuit. Fastest in the qualification round was the five-time world champion Sarah Hammer (USA), but she was defeated by the Briton Joanna Rowsell in the final.
Ryan will compete at 2am tomorrow morning (Irish time) when she lines out in the final event in Ireland’s world championship campaign, the women’s points race. She took bronze in the same race two years ago and will aim to once again finish on the podium.
She went painfully close to a silver medal in the earlier women’s scratch race on Wednesday, but was caught by the chasing peloton on the final bend.
Irvine took the best result in the Irish campaign on Thursday when he finished second in the scratch race. Ryan Mullen was fourth in the individual pursuit on the same day, a superb senior world championship debut for the nineteen year old.
Elsewhere, Matt Brammeier continued to perform well in the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia. The Synergy Baku rider repeated the long range attack he launched on stage one, going clear in a group early on today's third stage and clocking up points in intermediate sprints and on climbs.
As a result he retains his lead in the King of the Mountains competition and also takes over at the top in the sprints competition. While the break was hauled back before the finish in Kuala Lumpur, where the Italian Andrea Guardini (Astana) won the stage, Brammeier moved from third to second overall as a result of the time bonuses gained.
“I felt pretty good at the start, so I thought I’d give it a go in the breakaway again,” he stated. “I managed to slip into the day’s break and took some more points in the KOM competition. We played a few games with the chasing group behind and at one point it looked like we could go all the way to the finish. In the end after the last climb the gap wasn’t quite big enough so I sat up and waited for the chasing group.”
“I finished the day with a few more points in the KOM and moved up a spot in GC and also took the lead in the points competition. So I am pretty satisfied.”
World track championship, Cali, Colombia:
Men’s points race
1 Edwin Avila Vanegas (Colombia) 70 points
2 Thomas Scully (New Zealand) 66
3 Eloy Teruel Rovira (Spain) 58
4 Andreas Graf (Austria) 50
5 King Lok Cheung (Hong Kong) 41
6 Martyn Irvine (Ireland) 35
Women’s individual pursuit (qualification)
1 Sarah Hammer (USA) 3 mins 29.711 seconds
2 Joanna Rowsell (Great Britain) 3 mins 30.610 secs
3 Amy Cure (Australian) 3 mins 30.895 secs
4 Ganna Solovei (Ukraine) 3 mins 33.244 secs
5 Maria Luisa Calle Williams (Colombia) 3 mins 37.576 secs
6 Caroline Ryan (Ireland) 3 mins 37.847 secs
Finals
Rowsell beat Hammer for gold
Cure beat Solovei for bronze
