Cycling: Ellesse Andrews wins keirin World Championship title

Ellesse Andrews. Photo / Photosport

New Zealand track cyclist Ellesse Andrews claimed a maiden World Championship triumph with a brilliant ride in the keirin final in Glasgow.

The 23-year-old powered to gold after hitting the lead with two laps to go and clinging on for victory by a hundredth of a second. Her brilliantly planned race was perfectly executed to hold off Colombia’s two-time world championship medallist, Martha Bayona Pineda to claim the title.

Bayona, who had impressed in the quarter-finals and semis finished second with Germany’s Lea Friedrich, the defending champion, in third.

It needed a photo finish to confirm the victory, with officials also checking a slight movement in the lane by the kiwi, before she could celebrate with her parents and grandfather in the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

Andrews is now a world and Commonwealth Games champion in the discipline - having finished second in the event at the Tokyo Olympics.

She is also the first New Zealander to win an individual sprint title at the World Championships.

Andrews was second in her quarterfinal behind Germany’s Emma Hinze, and rode confidently to qualify for the final after finishing second to another German, Lea Sophie Friedrich in the semifinal.

“This has been a dream of mine for a really long time,” the new world champion said.

“It’s my first, elite rainbow jersey and the last one was second year juniors in 2017. I’ve been pushing for this one for a really long time and I’m super proud that I can bring it home to New Zealand this year.”

Andrews drew the sixth marble for the final which meant she started at the back of the six-rider field. But that didn’t appear to faze her.

“We’d made a plan for sort of every scenario where I could draw. And so as soon as I drew six, me and Nick (Flyger) had a couple of words and it was super clear on what I needed to do. And the race played out exactly how I wanted it to.”

“That last acceleration on the back straight was absolutely everything I had. And then from there it was honestly just holding as best I could because Martha was definitely coming at me in second place.”

There is little respite for Andrews after a long night with presentations, media and doping to eat and get some rest before she returns for the individual sprint qualifying tomorrow morning in which she is the Commonwealth Games champion.

In other action on the track, Tom Sexton was 11th fastest in qualifying in the 4000m individual pursuit clocking 4:11.793, with the gold medal won later by remarkable Italian Filippo Ganna, who overcame a two second deficit in the final two laps to beat GBR’s Daniel Bigham by 0.01s.

The 2019 world champion Campbell Stewart was 11th in the four-discipline omnium, going into the final points race in sixth. It proved a quite remarkable points race with a total of 49 laps gained by 18 riders in the 25km race.

Portugal’s Iuri Leitao won on 187 points, two points ahead of favourite Benjamin Thomas (FRA) who lapped the field four times and won the final double points sprint.

Earlier Emily Shearman finished 20th in the women’s elimination race.

Tomorrow’s day five competition features Andrews in sprint qualifying, George Jackson in the men’s elimination with Ally Wollaston and Bryony Botha competing in the two-rider Madison.