Paris Olympics 2024 Track Cycling: Jennifer Valente, Harrie Lavreysen, & Ellesse Andrews dominate finals with gold wins

Jennifer Valente wins Women’s Omnium, Harrie Lavreysen takes Men’s Keirin, and Ellesse Andrews secures double gold in Women’s Sprint.

The last session of the track cycling events of the Paris Olympics 2024 delivered a grand finale in the National Velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, with three titles awarded: to Ellesse Andrews (NZL) in the women’s sprint, Harrie Lavreysen (NED) in the men’s keirin and Jennifer Valente (USA) in the women’s omnium.

The USA’s Jennifer Valente, the reigning Olympic Champion and UCI World Champion, showed dominance in the first three events of the women’s Omnium, with victories in the scratch race and the elimination race, and 2nd place in the tempo race. Ahead of the decisive points race, her tally of 118 points was significantly higher than the 108 points of Georgia Baker (Australia) and the 96 of Maggie Coles-Lyster (CAN).

Daring attacks turned the standings upside down, laying the stage for a thrilling battle for the podium positions while Valente maintained her lead. The American star eventually sealed the deal with 144 points. Poland’s Daria Pikulik (131 points) took the silver medal and New Zealand’s Ally Wollaston (125 points) rounded out the podium.

After retaining her title, Valente said: “I went into the day to ride each of the four events as a standalone basically, and I think I did that pretty well and it worked out. I definitely went into the points race looking at the couple of riders that were trailing me, and the points gap dropped a little bit once you get further down the startlist. I was pretty happy to let other people take points and let the race evolve. It’s fantastic [to have won two gold medals]. This has been a very long week, with the team pursuit qualifying a week ago, and I’m really excited to pull it off on the last day.”

Lavreysen: “I’m not often emotional”

The exhilarating quarter-finals of the keirin led to the early eliminations of Colombia’s Kevin Quintero (the reigning UCI World Champion) and the Netherlands’ Jeffrey Hoogland. Great Britain’s Jack Carlin, Australia’s Matthew Glaetzer and Matthew Richardson, Japan’s Shinji Nakano, the Netherlands’ Harrie Lavreysen and Malaysia’s Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom eventually powered through the semi-finals.

Already a two-time gold medallist this week – in the individual and team sprints -, Lavreysen powered to the front of the race and nobody could get back to the man who claimed his third Olympic title in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the fifth after his previous conquests at Tokyo 2020. Australia’s Richardson (2nd) and Glaetzer (3rd) joined him on the podium.

“This is incredible”, Harrie Lavreysen said. “I didn’t want to think too much about three golds this morning. I wanted to see this keirin as just one race. I felt really strong this morning. I tried to go safe in the semi-final, and in the final, I think I positioned really well and then went full out. I’m not often emotional but this is special. In Tokyo, I had two golds and one bronze. I found it really hard to be strong for a full week but since then I did it in the UCI World Championships, so I knew it was possible.”

Andrews: “I’ve exceeded expectations”

The speeds and the intensity were already extremely high during the semi-finals of the women’s sprint, with New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews (already crowned Olympic Champion in the keirin) getting the better of Great Britain’s Emma Finucane (reigning UCI World Champion in the sprint) to face Germany’s Lea Friedrich (runner-up in the sprint in the last three editions of the UCI World Championships), who needed three rounds to get past the Netherlands’ Hetty van de Wouw.

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Finucane went on to claim the Olympic Games bronze medal to go along with her rainbow jersey. Moments later, Andrews asserted her dominance against Friedrich to establish herself as the undisputed queen of the sprint events at Paris 2024, with two individual golds along with a silver medal in the women’s team sprint.

“It’s been an amazing week,” Ellesse Andrews celebrated. “I’m really proud of the way I raced, physically but also mentally, technically, how I carried myself through the week with full gas days of racing. It’s just unbelievable [to win two titles]. Honestly, I’ve exceeded the expectations, coming here and winning one medal, let alone three.”

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