August 5, 2007 (Aguascalientes, Mexico) — Canada’s Matt Potma (BC) finished in the top 10 in the men’s 3km Individual Pursuit Qualifying yesterday at the Junior Track World Championships, Aug. 4-7, with a great ride and a new personal best with a time of 3.28.444 at 51.812kph placing 10th (only the top 4 advance).

We all wish him well with the rest of his campaign in the Scratch race (Aug. 5) and in the Individual Time Trial, and Road Race at the Junior Road Worlds (Aug. 9-12).

Report from Matt

I rode my pursuit yesterday… I was feeling pretty good at the time; did some fast 1.5km efforts the day before.

The wind was somewhat mild, about 10-15kph, with a tailwind through the first banking. I went out slow (relatively speaking), pulling about 23-sec. laps at first. A lot of riders were blowing, and I was afraid that would happen to me as well.

It all went quite fast, before I knew it, there were only three laps left (1km) and I was still comfortable. I opened it up a lot, brought my laps down to 22 sec., the last being a 21.4. My kilos were 1:13, 1:09, 1:06 – far from ideal, but I still rode a 3:28. The time placed me 10th overall and I had the 2nd fastest final kilo of the day!

The Scratch race is tonight, no qualifying rounds – just straight to the final of 20 riders. I looked over the start list and the only name I recognized from the top few riders in the pursuit was Travis Meyer.

I’m feeling good, I have decent top end power, and think a good result is quite attainable tonight…

Matt

Men’s Individual Pursuit Final

1. Travis Meyer (Aus)
2. Evgeny Kovalev (Rus)
3. Leigh Howard (Aus)
4. Jerome Cousin (Fra)
5. Fabian Schaar (Ger)
6. Alex Cull (Nzl)
7. Paolo Locatelli (Ita)
8. Viktor Shmalko (Rus)
9. Shane Archbold (Nzl)
10. Matthew Potma (Can)
11. Luca Pirini (Ita)
12. Piotr Kasperkiewicz (Pol)
13. Michael Reidle (Ger)
14. Albert Barcelo Torres (Esp)
15. Luis Bonet Mas (Esp)
16. Petr Kaltofen (Cze)
17. Salazar Castane Sebastian Hugo (Col)
18. Arthur Vanoverberghe (Bel)
19. Ricardo Velarde (Mex)
20. Roy Pieters (Ned)