Sorry for the lack of posts...long day.
We had to wait to sprint for almost 3 hours after warm-ups finished while we waited for Pursuit qualifiers. Good Lord is that boring. Seriously.
Anyway, on to the sprints. I was initially seeded 7th, so I got to wait for the majority of the other riders to do their flying 200's. I rode an 11.46...not a phenomenal time, but definitely respectable. I ended up qualifying in 10th, and the top 12 got to move on to the finals! Yea me!
So, as luck would have it, I got to face Ryan Nelman in the first round (for those of you who don't know, Nelman was the silver medalist in the match sprints in 2005). I knew my only chance would be to take him by surprise. I jumped when he wasn't ready and pulled a decent gap. I had gone pretty early, and I knew he had my wheel, so I backed off just a bit on the backstretch and let him pull even with me. I hit it hard again and was almost able to beat him at the line. He won by about 2 inches.
I then moved on to a repechage (losers round) and got completely owned. It was a 3-up race, and I tried to lead it out. The other two jumped and boxed me out, and that ended my 2007 match sprinting career. Unfortunately, The MIB caught this spectacle on video, but I won't have access to it until we get back to MN.
Overall, I'm really pumped to be one of the top 10 sprinters in the entire nation in only my first year of racing!
Franz had a disappointing 12.1 qualifying time. It's understandably frustrating to not be riding up to his potential. He's pissed off, so I have no doubt that he'll rip out an insane start to our Team Sprint on Saturday.
The DGC and Crosby both had disappointments in the Scratch Race heats, with neither of them qualifying for the finals. Tomorrow is another day, boys.
I don't have any races tomorrow, but I'm exited to watch the match sprint finals and points race. We're finally done with pursuits, so that should make the days go faster.
4 comments:
I messed the flying 200 so bad that the second 100 meters was just as fast as my firts 100 meters. The best I can figure my max speed was a fraction over 60 kph. In the standing start 250 my max was 62.1. This morning I hit a lifetime personal best top speed on the track at 65.8 during warm up. I really thought I was going to nail it this afternoon. Did not happen.
I came here primarily to do well in the team sprint. I am done with the screw ups and will do my job right on Saturday and help our team bring home some hardware.
Why isn't it best 2 out of 3 for the match sprints? Isn't that how the State sprint Champs was run? Nice job making the final rounds.
The 1/8 finals and reps are only 1 race. The quarter finals, semi's, and finals are all best of 3.
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