James claims her second gold at Euro champs

• Friday, 17 July 2009
• Hugh Gladstone
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Welsh track sprinter Becky James claimed her second gold medal at the European Track Championships in Belarus today when she recorded the fastest ride in the junior women’s 500m time trial.

Stopping the clock on 35.286 seconds, the 17 year old beat her closest rival – French rider Olivia Montauban - by over a third of a second.

“Very good: that’s two out of two now,” commented British sprint coach Iain Dyer. “Her times have been very quick – she’s recorded new PBs in both events. Now we’ll see what she can do in the Keirin tomorrow.”

Despite being fastest in this morning’s qualifying session, there was no follow-up gold for Britain’s under-23 team pursuiters.

Mark Christian, Andy Fenn, Luke Rowe and Erick Rowsell went almost another second quicker in this evening’s final but were beaten by a very fast Russian squad who’d improved considerably on their own qualifying time to clock 4-04.381 for the 4,000m event.

“They are all first year under 23 riders and they did two really good rides,” noted Olympic Development Plan Performance Director Helen Mortimer of her British charges. “The Russians came home really strong in qualifying so we knew once they sorted out the first couple of kilometres, it was going to be a real fight.”

At the time of writing, this evening’s finals sessions were still taking place. Tim Kennaugh and Dan McLay will be riding in the junior men’s points race while Jason Kenny and David Daniell have been progressing through the under-23 individual sprint rounds.

This morning Kenny qualified second fastest with a time of 10.019 seconds while Daniell was fifth with 10.181.

Last night, both riders along with Peter Mitchell picked up a silver medal in the team sprint discipline. The GB team has now won four golds, three silver and two bronze medals.

British medals
Gold - junior women's sprint: Becky James
Gold - junior women's 500m TT: Becky James
Gold - junior women's team pursuit: Jessica Booth, Laura Trott, Ella Sadler-Andrews
Gold - U23 men's individual pursuit: Steven Burke
Silver - U23 men's team pursuit: Mark Christian, Andy Fenn, Luke Rowe and Erick Rowsell
Silver - junior men's team pursuit:
Silver - U23 men's team sprint: Jason Kenny, David Daniell, Peter Mitchell
Bronze - junior women's individual pursuit: Laura Trott
Bronze - junior men's individual pursuit: George Atkins

RELATED LINKS
Becky James takes GB's second gold at Euro track champs
British women take junior team pursuit at Europeans
Jason Kenny and Steven Burke lead Euro champs track team

EXTERNAL LINKS
Official site of the 2009 European track championships