Elinor Barker is fast becoming a regular on the Track Cycling World Championships - but she admits her silver medal in the women’s Madison alongside Emily Nelson was one she didn’t see coming.
Barker, who was part of the Olympic team pursuit gold-winning quartet in Rio, had already added scratch race silver to her collection before lining up in a new-look partnership with Nelson, in what was the first-ever women’s Madison.
In contention for a medal from the off, World Championships debutant Nelson won the first sprint following a perfectly-timed change, before Barker added two more points to their total in the second.
The Belgian duo of Lotte Kopecky and Jolien D’Hoore led at the halfway stage on 19 points, with Great Britain second on 13 and Australia on 11, but Barker and Nelson brought themselves well back into contention with victory in the seventh sprint.
But the Belgians proved too strong in the final two sprints as the Brits finished ten points adrift of the rainbow jersey, but Barker was quick to hail their efforts given the lack of experience under their belts.
“I really enjoyed it, I was pretty nervous beforehand because we’ve both only ridden in one Madison each before,” she said.
“We didn’t really know what to expect. You get a general idea of how a points race or a scratch race is going to go based on the field, but between us, we hadn’t raced all of the girls in this field but it was pretty fun.
“We’re not surprised at all by the Belgians being faster than everyone else – it’s bred into them, they’re a Madison nation. Hats off to them, they were very impressive.
“It was a really hard race so it’s a pretty big achievement to be second.”
Nelson added: “It’s such an exciting race and I can’t wait to do more of them.
“We wanted to pick up as many points as possible and just keep going for the sprints.
“We’re both good sprinters so we were just hoping that we’d rack up the points and see how that worked out. It worked out well for us!”
Elsewhere, Ryan Owens was narrowly pipped to the bronze medal in the men’s sprint by New Zealand’s Ethan Mitchell.
Making his World Championship debut in Hong Kong this year, the 21-year-old was defeated 2-0 in the race for the final spot on the podium, having beaten German rider Max Niederlag in the quarter-final before falling at the hands of Harrie Lavreysen in the semis.
Scratch race bronze medallist Chris Latham finished 18th in the omnium having picked up two points in the final points race.
He finished 20th in both the scratch race and tempo race before placing 13th in the elimination, a result that saw him sit bottom of the pile heading into the finale.
New omnium world champion Katie Archibald couldn’t back up the previous day’s rainbow jersey success as she missed out on a bronze medal ride in the individual pursuit.
Her qualifying time of 3:31.331 saw her finish fifth, while Ellie Dickinson, also making her World Championships debut this season, placed 12th with a new personal best time – her second of the week.
And in the women’s 500m time trial, Olympic bronze medallist Katy Marchant finished 13th in a time of 34.659.
Great Britain now have a haul of four medals in Hong Kong – one gold, two silver and one bronze – with just one day of racing remaining. Sportsbeat 2017