September 28, 2002 – The skies have opened up with one day to go in the 2002 World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark. Rainy skies have changed into sunny days and the Canadian staff took advantage of it spending the morning exploring downtown Copenhagen. Even in the most intensive environments, like the World Championships, there is time to benefit in other ways from these experiences.
Laura Yoisten, who finished competing on Friday is very pleased with her performances at her first World Championships and her first international competition. She placed 18th in the Sprints and 19th in the 500 meters with a time of 38.187, a personal best. Yoisten has been battling the best female track cyclists in the world and she says this experience has motivated her to return next time as a serious contender.
The evening race schedule on Saturday, September 28/02, began with the medal ceremony from yesterdays events. The first awards were the men's Team Pursuit. The Australians put in a convincing gold medal performance, finishing seven seconds ahead of the German team with a time of 4:00.628. The third place went to Great Britain. The next awards were for the men's Olympic Sprint team. It was bittersweet revenge for the British team of Jamie Staff, Chris Hoy and Craig Maclean who had lost to the Australian team at the Commonwealth Games but beat them in the finals in Denmark to come away with the World title.
The men's points race was the first event and Great Britain's Chris Newton won with a commanding lead of twenty-six points over silver medalist Franz Stocher from Austria who had fifty points. In the women's Points Race, that followed immediately, Olga Slioussareva from Russia finished with a powerful fifteen point lead over Lada Kozlikova of Czelovakia. Slioussareva, last years Points race champion, was clearly the strongest today winning five of the ten sprints and scoring in nine of them. Canada's lone competitor, Mandy Poitras, struggled through the race scoring only two points in the last sprint and finished 14th. Kurt Innes, the National team coach, quoted after the race that “Mandy has stated her objective is tomorrow's Scratch Race, and that this Points Race would serve as a warm up event for her. The disappointment of today will hopefully be removed with a great race tomorrow by Poitras.”
The final event of the evening was the Women's Sprints. Katrin Meinke of Germany had won the qualification round with a time of 11.480 only one hundredth of a second over Natallia Tsylinskaya of Belarus who won the 500 meters on Thursday. However, in sprinting it isn't necessarily the fastest who will win. It is an event that requires cunning tactics as well as speed. In the semi-finals top qualifier Meinke was overthrown by Kerrie Meares of Australia. Meares is known for her aggressive tactics and at times questionable sportsmanship riding. It was these tactics that won her a place in today's gold medal round against Tsylinskaya. In the end, Tsylinskaya walked away with gold around her neck. Meinke fought her way back in the finals to claim the remaining spot on the podium.
On Sunday, September 29/02 the schedule is as follows: women's 10 km Scratch race, followed by the men's 50 km Madison and lastly the final rounds of the men's Sprints. Stay tuned, Canada has a great chance at medaling tomorrow. Poitras is a Scratch race specialist hopefully she was able to work out the cobwebs in today's event.