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Updated - Hoy escapes to victory as rest of field crashes in World Cup Keirin final +video & bonus video

…but Victoria Pendleton has to settle for bronze in women's final...

Sir Chris Hoy's tactic of attacking off the front paid of handsomly yesterday as he powered his way to victory in the men's keirin final on day two of the Manchester round of the Track World Cup.

Hoy's move proved doubly shrewd when unknown to him the entire chasing field of five riders crashed in pursuit of the flying Scot. The spectacular crash once again underlined the physical nature of keirin racing and the toughness of those who take part exemplified by Malaysian rider Azizulhasni Awang getting back in the saddle and crossed the line before collapsing on the track apron with a seven inch splinter embedded through his calf. The Malaysian was awarded 3rd place, after the Polish rider, Kamil Kucynsky was demoted to fourth while the Spaniard Peralta was relegated to last for pushing Ed Dawkins of NZ out of the way in the melee following the crash. Awang had already left the velodrome on a stretcher by the time he was promoted to third, he was taken to hospital where he was operated on and the splinter removed, happily he was up and tweeting about it by Sunday afternoon though. Jason Niblett won the silver medal.

 

Hoy's win in the keirin in such dominating fashion was some consolation for being knocked out of the sprint competition by his countryman Jason Kenny on Friday – Kenning going on to take silver in the final.

There was scant consolation though for Team GB's other star performer Victoria Pendleton who had to settle for a bronze medal in the women's sprint competition a day after she and partner Shanaze Reade were knocked out early in the team sprint, Australia beat China in the final with the British duo of Becky James and Jess Varnish taking fourth place. Last night Pendleton at least made the podium taking the bronze medal after being knocked out by Anna Meares in the semi final. As in the women's sprint competiton the final was an Aussie/Chinese affair with Meares triumphing over the Chinese rider Shuang Guo.

Hoy's Saturday night win doubled Britian's gold medal tally so far adding to the victory of the women's puruist team of Wendy Houvenaghel, Joanna Rowsell and Sarah Storey who overpowered a New Zealand trio on Friday.

For full reports on the action from the Manchester round of the Track World Cup go to the British Cycling website, the action will also be covered live on the BBC today from 1.30pm.

road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.

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TheFatAndTheFurious | 13 years ago
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The sequence of events was (with times from 2nd vid)

Hoy wins (0:52)
Niblett stays on his bike (!) and is 2nd (0:54)
Kucynski gets up on his bike and slowly approaches the line
Awang gets put on his bike and then _races_ to the line (1:10 as Hoy circles with salute)
Awang passes Kucynski a yard before the line (not shown)
Dawkins picks up his bike, nearly gets wiped out by Gascon (sans bike, who then falls), crosses the line and collapses.
Gascon picks up his bike to cross the line last.

Awang looks down....  31

It was quite a spectacle, and chapeau to the lot of them for each finishing the race.

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Tony Farrelly | 13 years ago
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That's British Cycling called it on Kucynsky at the time but I am sure you could be right because Peralta definitely finished before both of them but as he was barging people out of the way to get there and crossed the line sans bike his demotion to last place would have elevated both Kucynsky and Awang - also there is nothing against Kucynsky's name in the results that i can see that indicates he was moved down a place.

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TheFatAndTheFurious | 13 years ago
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Kamil Kucynsky wasn't 'demoted' to 4th - that's where he finished! Awang (with 25cm splinter  13 ) caught and passed him about a yard before the line. He _truly_ earned that bronze medal.

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Aapje | 13 years ago
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Nice win, although I thought the celebrating was poor form. It was also rather ridiculous to have 2nd and 3rd place decided by a foot race.

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