Great Britain Cycling Team’s junior squad are in Aigle at the World Cycling Centre for the UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships.
Jessica Roberts secured Great Britain’s first medal of the world championships when she won silver in a hotly contested women’s points race.
The team start the week following on from a successful outing at the UEC Track Juniors and Under-23 European Championships, contributing 10 of the British squad’s 19 medals from the championships.
Women’s points race
A 100-lap game of tactics, endurance and power, the women’s points race seemed to be in the bag for Wiktoria Pikulik after she took a lap and chalked up several sprint points in the first half.
Jessica Roberts caught the field napping when she took a lap with 23 laps to go, catapulting herself into third place.
A further three points from the penultimate sprint and five in the final sprint saw Roberts overtake Pikulik, last year’s world champion, to snatch silver.
"I was a bit annoyed I didn't get a few more points at the start of the race, because I was only three points off the win," said Roberts.
"But it was my first world champs and I can come back next year, stronger and try again."
Happy with silver in the points race at World champs today! pic.twitter.com/fkeXoEC4Dq
— Jess Roberts (@JessRoberts_99) July 20, 2016
The race was won by European points race champion Letizia Paternoster, who took the gold medal without having to take a lap, so supreme was se in the 10 sprints.
Team sprint
Sophie Capewell and Lauren Bate-Lowe were sitting in fourth and had qualified for the bronze medal race from the opening rounds before the final heat saw New Zealand and Korea knock the British team and the European gold medallists, the Netherlands out of the medal races.
The British duo finished the completion in sixth position.
6th for us in team sprint today! Not as good as it could have been but so much better than euros! #ontheup
— Sophie Capewell (@SophieECapewell) July 20, 2016
It was a shaky start to the competition for the British trio of Hamish Turnbull, Lewis Stewart, Alex Jolliffe when Turnbull was dropped by his holder on the starting line, causing him to knock into Stewart and send him crashing down onto the track and the heat to be re-started.
Unfazed, the British team posted the fastest time of the qualifying rounds so far but ultimately finished the event in sixth position and out of the medals.
Gallery
Team pursuit qualifying
The women’s quartet of Jessica Roberts, Lauren Dolan, Eleanor Dickinson and Emily Tillet qualified in 5th place, with a time of 4:42.244 behind European champions Italy, reigning champions New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
European team pursuit champions, Matt Walls, Reece Wood, Ethan Hayter, Fred Wright set a new national record in Montichiari last week in their gold medal-winning ride.
The team qualified in third position with a time of 4:06.468. Only New Zealand and Denmark rode faster in qualifying, with world record-holders Australia clocking the fourth fastest time behind the British riders.
