World Track Championships 2007

Palma, Majorca, Spain

WCN quicklink >>  Day 1 - Team Sprint Qualifying     Team Sprint Final    Qualifying Photos    Finals Photos

                              Day 2 - Sprint Qualifying        Pursuit qualifying and final     Photos

                              Day 3 -  500m TT     Scratch Race   Sprint Final     Photos

                              Day 4 -  Points Race    Keirin Finals     Photos

Day 1

Team Sprint Qualifying

Race Writeup

In the first event for women of the championships and the first time in a World Championships, the Team Sprint was a hotly contested affair. The qualifying session resulted in a gold medal final battle between fastest qualifiers Great Britain who, with a time of 33.630, were the only team to break 34 seconds and the Netherlands who qualified in 34.071sec.

The pairing of, Victoria Pendleton and new comer to the track, Shanaze Reade, who has just come up from the junior ranks in BMX, stormed round the track in a time of 14.325 for the first of two laps, to set up Pendleton to finish in the lead spot.

The Australian pair of Anna Meares, 23, and Kristine Bayley, 23, qualified for the bronze medal final against France. The duo, who posted the third fastest time in qualifying of 34.155sec, ride off for bronze medal with a slight edge over their rivals, Sandie Clair and Virginie Cueff, who qualified in 34.314.

Victoria Pendleton was happy with the Team Sprint qualification place and chatted after the event. “My training has been going really well at the moment, the last few days I have been happy with my time. The World Cup events have gone well, especially in Manchester so I feel I am here in the best condition of my life.”

Asked if she was enjoying the new Team Sprint event she added, “It was good fun; it is nice to do a different event. It is great to have a team event for women; we never had this opportunity before. It was great to have someone as strong and the standard of Shanaze [Reade] in front of me. It was exciting going into this, I didn’t feel any stress at all, and it’s a great opportunity for Women to show what they can do. Shanaze has phenomenal power and speed that comes from her BMX background. She has only been doing the track for a couple of months, she is amazing and she is only 18. She can only get better. I am just worried that she will go faster and I won’t be able to get on.”

The GB squad is fielding a number of new faces this year Pendleton was asked to comment on this. “At the moment we have a lot of talent, we have two excellent pursuiters, a couple more girls coming through in the sprint which is great as that is keeping me on my toes and the other women have riders snapping at their toes too. This is really pushing us on; it is a great elite base that ensures we strive for better all the time. Everyone we have here has medal potential. It’s a nice environment to be in and great to have a strong women’s team. The men have always been strong so it’s great to be able to play a part in that success. It is a huge shame though that we only get 3 events in the Olympics, I am sure someone should look at that from an equality position. The men get 7 events, it hardly seems fair, the extra event really don’t take that much extra time and most riders double up, so the federations won’t have additional cost getting riders to the events. I find it hard it hard to understand how they can justify so few events for women. I think there should be both a team sprint and a team pursuit for women. How many sports is it so unequal for medals.”