Ellesse Andrews wins Olympic keirin title, Benjamin Thomas captures omnium crown at the Paris Games

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MONTIGNY-LE-BRETONNEUX, France (AP) — World champion Ellesse Andrews of New Zealand won the Olympic title in the women’s keirin at the Paris Games on Thursday night, holding off Dutch rider Hetty van de Wouw and Britain’s Emma Finucane in a sprint to the finish line.

In the men’s omnium, Benjamin Thomas of France overcame a crash in the concluding points race to hold off Portugal’s Iúri Leitão for gold. He finished with 164 points, Leitão had 153 and Fabio van den Bossche of Belgium took bronze with 131.

The keirin is a sprint race involving six riders who begin by pacing for three laps behind a motorized scooter. When it pulls off, the riders are left with three laps to conduct an elbow-to-elbow, high-speed dash to the finish.

Andrews quickly went to the front as Finucane gave chase, but she was comfortably clear coming out of the fourth turn of the steeply banked velodrome. Van de Wouw came through late on Finucane’s inside to snatch away the silver medal.

It was an especially gratifying victory for Andrews, who survived the repechages and made it all the way to the finals at the Tokyo Games, where she wound up with the silver medal behind Shanne Braspennincx.

Missing from the finals was Germany’s Lea Friedrich, who won her second world title in the event two years ago on the same track at the Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. Friedrich was trying to swing around the outside of her semifinal when Steffie van der Peet moved up the track, forcing Friedrich to bail out of her sprint to avoid a crash.

Friedrich was out of the medal hunt, while Van der Peet was edged by Finucane in a photo finish for a spot in the finals.

It was a particularly tough end to a painful night for the Dutch rider. In the quarterfinals, Van der Peet had crossed the finish line when Chinese rider Yuan Liying crashed into her, taking both of them down and leaving her with bloody floor burns.

There was less drama in the omnium, a four-race endurance test similar to the decathlon or heptathlon in track and field.

It begins with the 40-lap scratch race, where riders simply try to be first to the finish. Then comes the 40-lap tempo race, where riders accumulate points for intermediate sprints or lapping the field. Third is the elimination race, where the last rider every two laps is out. And the conclusion is the 100-lap points race, where every 10 laps the four leading riders earn points.

Thomas trailed by eight points going into the finale, but the French rider was constantly on the attack and quickly moved into the lead. He got bonus points for taking a lap on the field early, then did it again later in the race. And when Thomas went down on the back stretch, he calmly got back up, hopped onto a spare bike and rejoined the race.

Leitão was the only one who could catch him in the last 10 laps, and only by taking a lap on the field. When the world champion from Portugal tried to attack, Thomas marked him, slotting in right behind and going with him all the way to the finish.

In the men’s sprint, Harrie Lavreysen of the Netherlands swept his best-of-three match against Poland’s Mateusz Rudyk to send the reigning Olympic champion into Friday night’s semifinal round. Matthew Richardson of Australia likewise rolled past Yuta Obara of Japan in their match.

The other two quarterfinals were far less straightforward.

Jeffrey Hoogland of the Netherlands lost his opening sprint against Hamish Turnbull of Britain, then needed a photo finish to win their second race and force a decider. The reigning Olympic silver medalist kept the race pinned against the top of the track until the final lap, when he dove low down the backstretch and built a lead that Turnbull could not overcome.

Kaiya Ota thought he swept Jack Carlin in their quarterfinal, but the Japanese rider was relegated in the second race for deviating from his line. That forced a decider, and the Olympic bronze medalist from Britain beat Ota by the slimmest of margins.

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games