With team events over, the racing turned to the first day of individual efforts at the 2024 Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup on Saturday, with the finals of the women’s Madison and sprint, and the men’s keirin and omnium.
Here’s everything the winners had to say from the second day of racing at the Adelaide Super-Drome.
Men’s keirin
Mohd Azizulhasni Awang (Malaysia)
It's unbelievable. You know, the last time I won the Track Nations Cup was five years ago, and I had to battle with a heart condition. I had to go through open heart surgery, and nothing can stop me. Made a comeback. I think this is one of the toughest keirin as well. Richo and the Japanese are world class racers, and I'm so happy tonight.
I don't say that I'm in a good condition. I was struggling for the last month, the last three or four weeks. But of course in life, you have to go through, keep fighting. I was lucky. I trained with some of the Aussies here. I was based in Melbourne. Training with the Aussies, I think keep pushing me. Some of the tournaments here help me to be at this form as well. I'm not in the best form yet, but of course we're going to increase the performance slowly. We have six months and I hope by Paris I will be at the top form.
Women’s Madison
Elinor Barker (Great Britain)
Yeah, I think it ticked off a lot of process goals that we had about the race, and it just feels so nice to get to the finish, see that your name’s still at the top of the board, especially when you start off so early, you feel like there's only one way to go. And so yeah, really, really happy with that. Really proud of us.
Katie Archibald (Great Britain)
Yeah, good to go out aggressively and be at a point where we can defend. We've come in really early for this race, we've been fully acclimatised, no more jet lag, we’re pretty ready for the heat. Suffered with it still, but come in ready for the challenge, and yeah really glad to pull that off with a win.
Women’s sprint
Emma Hinze (Germany)
It feels really, really good to be on top again and to win like, a strong tournament. It was a long and hot day today, but I'm really proud that I made it to the top.
Actually of course, I'm disappointed (with yesterday’s disqualification in the women’s team sprint), but I was like, I can't change it anymore. So next time hopefully, do better and won't do this mistake again. Luckily, we have enough points for the Olympics, so that wasn't a problem. But still I was like, not so good to do this mistake but it is what it is.
Men’s omnium
Dylan Bibic (Canada)
It's amazing. This is the hardest I've ever had to work for anything. Like, this is hours and months and almost years put into this, learning the omnium and now it's finally clicked, and it feels amazing to win.
I remembered in the past in my omniums that I was always coming in top four into the points race and I always would have cracked within even 20 laps into the points race. But this time I just took a deep breath, took it patient.
I knew if a bunch of lower down people get up the road, it kind of buys me time, makes the race shorter so I don't have to, like, fight Viviani the whole time. I can keep it down to the last two sprints in this case. So that played in my favour, having the lead going into the final.
2024 Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup - Adelaide
All evening sessions in Adelaide will be broadcast live on SBS On Demand:
Sunday4pm – 7:41pm (AEDT)
The Adelaide Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup website is your information hub for the event.
Results and start lists can be found at Tissot Timing.
Each round of the UCI Track Nations Cup spans three days, with the same programme of events for men and women: keirin, individual sprint, team sprint, Madison, omnium, team pursuit and elimination race, i.e. the events of the Olympic programme, with the addition of the elimination race.
The 2024 Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup in Adelaide is proudly supported by the South Australian Tourism Commission.