Harrie Lavreysen won the world title in the keirin event during the Track Cycling World Championships in Chile on Thursday. The 28-year-old rider from Luyksgestel, also the reigning Olympic champion in this event, held off Australian Leigh Hoffman and compatriot Jeffrey Hoogland in the final.
For Lavreysen, who won gold in the team sprint section on Wednesday night on the opening day together with Hoogland and Roy van den Berg, this was already his eighteenth world title. This also includes six global sprint titles.
Second starting position
During the keirin, six riders start and first ride three laps behind a motorized pacer and then sprint for the win in three laps.
Lavreysen had drawn the second starting position, Hoogland started sixth and quickly moved to the front behind the bike. But when it came to sprinting, Lavreysen immediately took off on the Santiago cycling track. He maintained his margin until the finish.
The most successful Dutch Olympian among men with five gold medals had previously needed the repechages to reach the quarter-finals. Unlike Hoogland, he had not managed to finish among the first two in his heat, but he still put that right.
Hetty van de Wouw
For the women, Hetty van de Wouw from Kaatsheuvel qualified for the semi-finals of the sprint tournament on Thursday night.
She defeated New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews, the Olympic sprint champion and keirin of the Paris Games, in the quarter-finals. Van de Wouw only needed two heats to decide the match.
Last year she came second in the sprint. In the final she fell short against Emma Finucane in Ballerup, Denmark. This British rider finished in the quarter-finals on the Santiago cycling track on Thursday. Van de Wouw will compete for a place in the final against the Russian Jana Burlakova.
Skip
Van de Wouw had set the second best time during the qualifications and was therefore allowed to skip the first round. In the second round she defeated the Czech Veronika Jabornikova, who had been responsible for the elimination of Steffie van der Peet in the first round. In that phase it was only one heat, from the quarter-finals onwards it concerns two heats won.
The semi-finals and final will take place on Friday.
Gold
Van de Wouw and Van der Peet, together with Kim Kalee, won gold in the team sprint on Wednesday.