British duo Elinor Barker and Neah Evans secured a silver medal in the women’s Madison at the Paris Olympics on Friday night as Italy took gold.
A huge turn from Barker saw the Welsh rider take maximum points in the decisive final sprint which propelled GB ahead of the Netherlands into second place. Barker’s move guaranteed the silver medal for the British pair, who won the world title at the World Championships in Glasgow last summer.
Both Italy and the Netherlands lapped the field at different stages meaning that they were awarded 20 bonus points each. Nevertheless, Barker and Evans both continued to score on a regular basis during the intermediate sprints, held every 10 laps, which kept them in the running throughout.
Barker explained post-race that, despite winning the silver medal, the feeling afterwards was bittersweet.
"We really, really wanted gold," the 29-year-old said. "We came in as world champions, which obviously meant we put that pressure on ourselves. We had a target on our back potentially.
"We said it wouldn’t change the way that we raced but it was hard not to feel like we needed to take responsibility for things at times and perhaps that’s what we’ll pick up in our analysis but also I think - an Olympic medal. There are plenty of world champions this week that haven’t medalled. I think every single medal is a huge achievement."
"The Dutch and the Italians rode an amazing race," Barker added. "Because historically, I think there’s been maybe two races that have been won by lap gains alone. And so we didn’t really plan for that, our last year has been based around how we were going to win as many sprints as possible and as efficiently as possible."
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Evans echoed the sentiment of her teammate, but said the duo would still leave Paris proud with what they had achieved together.
"It’s an Olympic silver medal, of course that’s fantastic," Evans said. "As current world champions, we obviously came in with really high expectations. We wanted to win, we felt we were in a really good position and an attack just went that we weren’t 100% prepared for. I thought we responded, but it was then just a different race dynamic.
"We still gave it everything, and I think on reflection we will watch it back and still be so proud of the ride that we did. But obviously when you come for gold, you’re like ‘ah not quite’ but still, it’s a silver medal."
Jack Carlin secured bronze for GB in the men’s sprint final after seeing off Dutch powerhouse Jeffrey Hoogland.
Due to the two riders appearing to collide with each other, the final race of three was restarted by the commissaires. Carlin then led the decider out, accelerating ahead, and holding off a flying Hoogland to secure bronze for Great Britain.
The medal was Carlin’s second this games after he had been part of the trio that won the silver medal in the men’s team sprint on Tuesday.
After a very slow start, Carlin took the first round by a tenth of a second after speeding past Hoogland in the final straight. Hoogland then got back on terms for the Netherlands in the second round before his fellow countryman, Harrie Lavreysen, held off Matthew Richardson of Australia in the race for gold.
Prior to narrowly avoiding a crash with Hoogland, Carlin had already been placed on a warning by officials and it briefly appeared that the race could be decided by the commissaires.
However, Carlin was given a reprieve and avoided disqualification before he then went on to beat Hoogland.
Finucane and Capewell through to sprint last eight
Team GB will have two riders in the last eight of the women’s sprint finals.
Both Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell saw off their last 16 competitors with ease in order to progress. Capewell beat Mexico’s Daniela Gaxiola, while Finucane dispatched Steffie van der Peet of the Netherlands.
Germany’s Lea Friedrich and New Zealand's Ellesse Andrews, the winner of the gold medal in the women’s Keirin on Thursday, also progressed.
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