May 29th, 2004 – Australia’s Team-Pursuit recorded the tenth fastest time
in history in the semi-finals today and will face the Great Britain team in
the gold medal final. Australia was the only team, consisting of Peter
Dawson, Ashley Hutchinson, Luke Roberts and Stephen Wooldridge, to finish
with all four men. The two teams battling for bronze will be the teams from
Spain and the Netherlands.

In the sprint events it often comes down to one-hundredths of a second but
even that didn’t separate riders in the Men’s 200 meter qualifying event.
Ahmed Lopez Naranjo of Cuba and Hiroyuki Inagaki of Japan both qualified
with exactly the same time, 10.624 seconds and were tied for 18th position.
However, only eighteen men could move to the first round of sprints, which
meant that it came down to chance – the man who picked the shortest straw
would have the chance to compete. Inagaki was that lucky man. Unfortunately
he quickly got knocked out of the first round of sprints.

Lori-Ann Muenzer of Alberta successfully sprinted her way into the
quarter-finals where she met Anna Meares of Australia. Muenzer won the
first sprint but Meares came back strong and won the next two straight.
Meares will meet Svetlana Grankovskaya of Russia in the finals. It is still
unofficial who Muenzer will sprint against next.

In the women’s Points Race Olga Slyusareva of Russia, Vera Carrara of Italy
and Belem Guerrero Mendez of Mexico went on the offensive by lapping the
field and claiming all the podium spots. The trio rode strongly and caught
the field with only four laps remaining. Mandy Poitras of British Columbia
was racing but there are no final results posted at this time.

Results

Men’s 200 Meter Qualifying

1. Matthias John (Germany) 10.322 (69.753km/h)

2. Theo Bos (Netherlands) 10.339 (69.639km/h)

3. Damian Zielinski (Poland) 10.355 (69.531km/h)

4. Jamie Staff (Great Britain) 10.383 (69.344km/h)

5. Laurent Gane (France) 10.390 (69.297km/h)

6. Mickaël Bourgain (France) 10.400 (69.230km/h)

7. Ryan Bayley (Australia) 10.403 (69.210km/h)

8. Ross Edgar (Great Britain) 10.423 (69.078km/h)

9. Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan) 10.429 (69.038km/h)

10. Jens Fiedler (Germany) 10.447 (68.919km/h)

11. Lukasz Kwiatkowski (Poland) 10.454 (68.873km/h)

12. Florian Rousseau (France) 10.457 (68.853km/h)

13. Sean Eadie (Australia) 10.465 (68.800km/h)

14. Gregory Bauge (France) 10.491 (68.630km/h)

15. Jan Van Eijden (Germany) 10.546 (68.272km/h)

16. Teun Mulder (Netherlands) 10.576 (68.078km/h)

17. Salvador Melia (Spain) 0.619 (67.802km/h)

18. Hiroyuki Inagaki (Japan) 10.624 (67.771km/h)

Men’s Sprint Second Round

Heat 1

1. Teun Mulder (Netherlands) 10.777 (66.808km/h)

2. Matthias John (Germany)

Heat 2

1. Theo Bos (Netherlands) 11.004 (65.430km/h)

2. Florian Rousseau (France)

Heat 3

1. Mickaël Bourgain (France) 11.042 (65.205km/h)

2. Damian Zielinski (Poland)

Heat 4

1. Jens Fiedler (Germany) 10.834 (66.457km/h)

2. Jamie Staff (Great Britain)

Heat 5

1. Laurent Gane (France) 10.772 (66.839km/h)

2. Lukasz Kwiatkowski (Poland)