Ethan Hayter secured Great Britain’s second gold medal of the UCI Track World Championships as he made a successful defence of his omnium title in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Paris.
Hayter made a steady start with fourth place in the scratch race before finishing second behind overall leader Shunsuke Imamura in the tempo race, claiming nine of the sprints.
In the elimination race, Hayter stayed clear of any trouble at the front of the pack, eventually finishing second to move top of the standings after rivals Imamura and New Zealander Aaron Gate had failed to make the latter stages.
And, in the final points race, another second-placed finish ensured Hayter took the gold, ending with 147 points, ahead of France’s Benjamin Thomas (127) and Gate (118).
It adds to the team pursuit gold that Hayter helped GB secure on Thursday evening.
He said in quotes posted on British Cycling’s official Instagram account: “It’s amazing.
“The competition was quite high today and it was quite stressful at times because the points were so close, even until 20 laps to go maybe, I started to edge out a little bit. It was great to pull it off.”
Meanwhile, Josie Knight produced a stunning ride to claim bronze in the women’s individual pursuit.
Knight had set a new British record time of three minutes and 20.792 seconds to reach the bronze medal race, where she went on to come from behind to defeat Germany’s Mieke Kroger by 0.543 seconds.
Knight said: “I’m so ecstatic. It’s felt like the Germans have been pretty unbeatable the last couple of years, and to go out there and to have qualified fourth and then come away with the medal is just fantastic.”
Britain have seven medals in total so far from this week’s competition.
The team’s bid for one in the women’s Madison was ended by a crash for Laura Kenny towards the end of the race.
The race was neutralised just 10 laps in as some of the arena lights along the back straight went out. Following the restart, Belgium took a lap gain to move top ahead of France.
As the pace picked up towards the closing laps, a New Zealand rider was bumped into Kenny, who suffered a heavy fall on the penultimate lap. British duo Neah Evans and Kenny, who had been in the hunt for a podium place, eventually finished fifth.
Denmark made a late attack to grab an additional 10 points to come through and take bronze, with France having to settle for silver as Belgium won gold by just a point in a sprint finish.
Evans said: “It’s a lot of reflecting to do I guess. We knew going into it we were in a good place physically. We hadn’t actually done that much training together, but individually we knew we were going to be in the mix with it.
“So it was obviously pretty disappointing not to come away with the result we feel we are capable of, but that’s racing, Madison is notoriously chaotic and I think today’s race really showed that.
“Pretty frustrating – the final sprint, I think we had the legs to come away with a medal there, and an unfortunate crash from other people’s errors cost us. But that’s racing. You win some, you lose some. It’s just a bit of a shame when it’s at the World Championships.”
Jack Carlin and Hamish Turnbull both missed out on the chance to ride for medals after losing their quarter-finals.
Turnbull had beaten France’s Sebastien Vigier in a photo finish to secure his place in the last eight. However, Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen, the men’s Keirin champion, was too strong as he won both of the quarter-final sprint races, as did Australian Matthew Richardson against Carlin.
In the women’s 500m time trial, Emma Finucane finished in 11th place, with Lauren Bell in 12th as the duo missed out on progressing from the qualifying round.
France’s Marie-Divine Kouame went on to delight the crowd as she claimed gold on home soil ahead of Germany’s Emma Hinze and Yufang Guo of China.
