PARIS: New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews blasted to the women’s Olympic sprint title at the Paris velodrome on Sunday to go with her keirin gold medal. The 21-year-old easily outgunned German world record holder Lea Friedrich 2-0 in the best-of-three final to claim her country’s first sprint gold since it was added to the Olympic programme in 2008.

British world champion Emma Finucane overpowered the Netherlands’ Hetty van de Wouw 2-0 to take the bronze. Andrews upset Finucane 2-0 in the semi-finals and was always in charge against Friedrich, winning the first race by 0.095 and the second even more comfortably with a 0.624 margin.

Canadian defending champion Kelsey Mitchell was eliminated in the quarter-finals, then came eighth in the race-off for the minor places. Both Andrews and Friedrich have been in sizzling form in Paris, each smashing Mitchell’s world record in qualifying. Andrews achieved the feat first before Friedrich bettered it minutes later with a lightning-fast 10.029secs.

American defending champion Jennifer Valente overpowered the field to defend her women’s omnium title in the final velodrome race of the Paris Olympics on Sunday. Valente finished 13 points ahead of Poland’s Daria Pikulik, with New Zealand’s Ally Wollaston taking bronze, six points further back.

The omnium is one of track cycling’s most unpredictable events, featuring four separate races — the scratch, tempo, elimination and points — with riders collecting points in each. Valente timed the opening 30-lap scratch race to perfection, pulling clear on the final stretch to take the maximum 40 points ahead of Canada’s Maggie Coles-Lyster.

Irish rider Lara Gillespie seized the initiative in the tempo, finishing first. But Valente kept her overall lead, eight points clear of Australia’s Georgia Baker and 18 ahead of Coles-Lyster. The 29-year-old then won an energy-sapping elimination race, with Baker second and Coles-Lyster third to take a 10-point advantage into the final 80-lap race where she made no mistakes.

Valente upset then-world champion Yumi Kajihara of Japan to become the first American woman to win an Olympic track cycling gold medal at Tokyo three years ago. Since then, she has asserted herself as the woman to beat in the omnium, winning back-to-back world titles in 2022 and 2023. – AFP