Great Britain rounded off a fantastic 2024 Tissot UCI Track World Championship campaign in Ballerup, securing a total of 13 medals and equalling their best ever medal result for the team. For the women, the points race and keirin, concluded the final day of competition.
Women’s keirin
The women’s keirin racing started confidently with both Emma Finucane and Katy Marchant sailing through their qualifying rounds with ease.
Finucane dominated her quarter-final. Starting from the fourth position, she quickly moved to the front with three laps to go, holding off the pack to sneak across the line first and into the semi-finals.
Marchant came from fifth position, accelerating throughout the race and moving over the top with one lap to go. Creating space between her and the rest of the group with a final push on the home straight, she too moved into the next round.
Marchant’s semi-final ride saw her lead from the front for the majority, leaving other riders to scrap for places behind her as she pressed on into the final with relative ease.
Finucane had to push hard as Alessia McCaig (Australia) and Nurul Mohd Asri (Malaysia) went off the front early. The sprint world champion bridged the gap over the next two laps before unleashing her phenomenal speed in the final bend to finish in second place and join her teammate in the final.
In the final, Hetty van de Wouw (Netherlands) attacked hard with two laps to go, followed by Finucane who went over the top to position herself at the head of the race going into the final lap. Marchant sat in fifth place, with Finucane storming at the front as the group bunched together all vying for position.
Finucane went low onto the black line, while Mina Sato (Japan) headed off the front to take the win. Marchant closed in from behind, going long over the top of the race to come home with the bronze medal. Finucane finished fourth.
On how the race unfolded, Marchant said: “I try to go into keirins with not too much of a plan. I think sometimes for me if you go in with a plan it tends to unfold not the way you want it to. I think I have a really good instinct on racing, and I’ve raced really well all day today. Tactically today I don’t think I absolutely nailed that final which, I hate to say I feel a little bit disappointed by but yeah, to come away with a bronze medal.
Reflecting on the week, she added: “It’s been huge and mentally really challenging and it’s one I’m really really proud of. It’s been by far my most successful world championships and it’s been really tough, but we’ve used each other to get through this and obviously the result we got with the team sprint gave us really good momentum. I’m kind of glad it’s over, but I have had a really amazing week and one that I will take forward and learn form.”
Women’s points race
Neah Evans had mixed fortunes in the women’s points race, collecting good sprint points and taking a lap, before an unfortunate crash in the last lap saw her out of contention for the final sprint points to finish eighth overall.
A conservative start saw Evans struggling to get to the front, but she continued to fight for position. Three laps before the sprint, Evans rode away with Ally Wollaston (New Zealand) and Victoire Berteau (France) on her wheel to take her first five points of the race and push her into second behind Berteau and Wollaston.
Not long after, Jennifer Valente (USA), Japan’s Mizuki Ikeda (Japan) and Alexandra Manly (Australia) took a lap and 20 points to move up into the podium position.They were followed in quick succession by Marit Raaijmakers (Netherlands), Julie Leth (Denmark), Akvile Gedraityte (Lithuania) and Evans, with a chase group of five behind as Evans took more sprint points, now in fifth place.
Leth continued to make attacks throughout, often being reeled back in by the bunch before one stuck, with the Danish rider gaining a lap to propel her to the top of the leaderboard. With 10 laps to go, Leth, Wollaston and Kopecky made up the podium spots with five points between them.
Heading into the ninth sprint, a group of five made it off the front, including Lotte Kopecky (Belgium), Leth, Raaijmakers, Daniela Campos (Portugal) and Evans, with Evans just missing out on sprint points as the race splintered behind them.
Evans sat in sixth place, eight points off the podium with eight laps to go as the bunch reeled the front group back in. As the race wound up, it was a game of cat and mouse as riders waited to see who would flinch and commit to the final sprint.
As the bunch accelerated and riders fought for space, Evans tried to make her way through to the front and got caught up in a crash, bringing her down in the final bend to finish eighth with 27 points.
