Silver for WA Team Pursuit Stars

WAIS cyclists Melissa Hoskins and Isabella King have won silver at the London Track Cycling World Cup as members of the Australian women’s team pursuit squad that finished behind hosts Great Britain in the ride for gold.

As the third last starters Melissa Hoskins, Amy Cure, Ash Ankudinoff and Bella King posted the then fastest time of 4mins 23.498secs, by nearly five seconds.

The time was only narrowly beaten by Great Britain with 4mins 23.406secs.Australia faced Canada in the semi final – with Rebecca Wiasak stepping in for King – and they easily advanced to the gold final in 4mins 24.504secs over Canada.

King came back in for the final getting the team off to a fast start and holding the lead for much of the first two kilometres before Great Britain came back in the second half to claim gold in 4mins 22.194secs over Australia in 4mins 24.335secs.

Hoskins described the bittersweet result but ultimately saw the glass half full.

“Happy and disappointed at the same time,” she said. “We are happy because we brought back a five second deficit back to two seconds in two months. We are on the right track.

“Disappointed as always when you don’t win gold, especially in London, but I think I our time will come.

“We will take the positives out of this trip as we have to be happy with what we have done. We will take silver for now, but we are certainly looking at that top step.”

Canada claimed bronze.

The men’s team pursuit squad – featuring Commonwealth Games gold medallist Scott Sunderland (WAIS) – suffered misfortune in their attempts to carry on the success of World Cup 1, after dual punctures to two riders in the qualifying round against New Zealand, rendered the Australians’ time obsolete, under new regulations.

Earlier, reigning world champions Luke Davison (SA), Alex Edmondson (SA), Mitchell Mulhern (QLD) and 2014 junior world champion Callum Scotson (SA) flew around the track to post a time of 4mins 0.577secs to qualify fastest and set up first round heat with New Zealand.

Scott Sunderland replaced Scotson for the first round ride. After a strong start disaster struck, after dropping down to three riders Luke Davison suffered a puncture and put in an impressive display to hold it up.

“With about two and a half laps to go Luke’s rear tyre blew, which meant we were down to two even though we were about 80m up on the kiwis,” said Edmondson.

Under the new qualifying rules the winner of the heat between Australia and New Zealand would advance to the gold final. As would the winner of Great Britain and Denmark, with the two fastest teams of the remaining six then riding for bronze.

Unfortunately with the puncture impacting Davison, Australia was unable to finish its run and consequently set a time. The result saw Australia relegated down to the ride off for seventh and eighth.

Brushing off the disappointment of round one Davison, Edmondson, Mulhern and Scotson put in a strong ride to win the 7-8th final in 3mins 59.637secs. The only team over the three rounds to post a time under four minutes.

“We wanted to prove a point that we deserved to be in the gold medal ride off. Even though we only came 7th we still proved a big point by being the only team under the 4min barrier.

“It was a hard day today, we didn’t walk away with a gold medal around our necks but we learnt a lot and showed we are on track for Rio.” Gold went to Great Britain ahead of New Zealand while Denmark finished with bronze.

Isabella King continued a busy schedule with a fourth place finish in the women’s omnium. King contributed a strong day one of competition after finishing fifth in the opening scratch race and following up with another fifth place finish in a time of 3mins 38.718secs.

Another strong showing by King saw her as the fourth last rider to be eliminated, in the aptly named elimination race, moving her to third at the conclusion of day one on 98 points.

Heading in to the final three events 20 points off the lead, King was seventh in a time of 36.566secs in the 500m time trial before posting the tenth fastest flying lap in 14.734secs.

Heading in to the points race, King was sitting fourth just outside the medals. The medicine student picked up points across the sprints but was unable to move on to the podium, remaining fourth in a well fought battle.

Laura Trott (Great Britain) claimed gold ahead of Jolien D’hoore (Belgium) and Kirsten Wild (Netherlands).

-CyclingAus