World Cup Track 2010/2011

WCN quicklink >>      Team Sprint    Team Pursuit    Omnium- Day 1   Omnium- Day 2     Sprint Q    Sprint    

                                       Keirin Qualifying   Keirin    500m Time Trial

500m TT- Meares comes back strong to win 

Race Writeup

Anna Meares (AUS) started last in front of the home crowd. Meares, proudly wore the world championship jersey but kept the crowd on their toes during the ride. For 80% of the ride, Meares was running second behind Sandie Claire (FRA) who set the fastest time, Riding in the final pairing, the reigning World and Commonwealth champion Meares, was one tenth of a second behind France’s Sandie Clair’s for first 375 metres. She rallied over the last half lap in front of the parochial crowd, crossing the line in 33.593seconds to take gold.

Clair held on to take the silver medal in a time of 33.667seconds, with Hong Kong’s Wai Sze Lee taking bronze with 33.939seconds.

Back to Top

Post Race Comments

Anna Meares (AUS) gave it everything to win the 500 Time Trial, “Yeah that hurt,” said Meares,  after the win. 
“Near the end, your legs are burning and screaming at you to stop, the lactic acid makes your legs blow up to twice the size. So I just pulled a bit harder on the bars and rolled the hips a bit more and I got there in the end,” added Meares. 

Meares was asked if she realised she was down on Clair, “It’s a funny event, you don’t really know you are down until you get off the bike and people go oh, that was close. “I actually thought that Claire and Lee would really throw down a great challenge, and by the sounds of it I only just got it.”

Physically and mentally drained from her gold medal effort the previous night, Meares was still happy given her recent training focus on sprinting efforts. “I woke up this morning and felt like I had been hit by a bus, as I was quite gee’d up from winning the sprint,” Meares explained. “So after the keirin heat this morning, I went for a nap and ending up sleeping for two and a half hours and felt really good in warm up. Given my preparation of late has been has been on the rolling work, the standing starts have suffered a bit, but today the back end saved me.

“But it is close to the time I rode this time last year, would have hoped for a little quicker, but I can only get out of myself what I am capable of. I know what I need to work on for worlds now,” she added.

Despite the women’s time trial no longer being on the Olympic program, Meares’ still has a soft spot for her pet event.  “With it being dropped from the Olympic program, a lot of women no longer focus on getting this event perfect. “But I understand that logic, but in my book a world title is a world title, regardless of whether it is an Olympic sport."

Copyright WomensCycling.net 2004 - 2010^©