Jennifer Valente made a dominant defense of her Olympic women's omnium title on Sunday, earning her second gold medal of the week and wrapping up the most successful Summer Games for the U.S. cycling team in 40 years.
Valente finished with 144 points in the multidiscipline event, well ahead of Daria Pikulik of Poland, who had 131. Ally Wollaston of New Zealand held off Lotte Kopecky of Belgium at the end of the 80-lap concluding points race to take bronze.
Valente helped the Americans win gold in the team pursuit earlier in the week, along with Kristen Faulkner, who also won two gold medals after her road race triumph. In all, the U.S. team captured three gold medals and six in cycling events, its best haul since the team won four golds and nine medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
Earlier in the final session of cycling, Harrie Lavreysen won his third gold medal of the Paris Games by holding off Australians Matthew Glaetzer and Matthew Richardson in the finals of the men’s keirin, and Ellesse Andrews of New Zealand captured her second gold and third medal overall by sweeping Lea Friedrich of Germany in the sprint finals.
The session began with the scratch race, the first event in the omnium, where riders try to cover 30 laps as quickly as possible. And just as Valente did at the Tokyo Games, she played the cat-and-mouse game perfectly to secure maximum points.
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Just as the peloton was hitting the bell lap, two of her biggest threats — Kopecky and Neah Evans of Britain — touched wheels. Kopecky wound up 17th, which may have cost her a medal in the end, while Evans hit the deck and finished last.
In the tempo race, where a point is awarded to the leader of each of the final 25 laps, Valente was joined by Pikulik and Georgia Baker of Australia in an early attack, and they worked together to share the 21 remaining sprint points.
The top three riders entering the elimination race, where one rider is taken from the field every two laps, were also the last three on the track. Valente again went to the front and held off Baker at the finish to earn the maximum points.
That gave Valente a 10-point lead entering the points race, where the top four riders in sprints every 10 laps get points. Riders also can earn a 20-point bonus by taking a lap on the field, though, and that is what the American did with 36 laps to go.
Valente was so far ahead that she merely had to avoid any catastrophes to stand atop another Olympic podium.
In the keirin, world champion Kevin Quintero of Colombia and two-time world silver medalist Jeffrey Hoogland of the Netherlands were eliminated in the same quarterfinal, where only the first four in the six-rider field advanced to the semis.
While the favorites safely made the finals, Hamish Turnbull of Britain and Luca Spiegel of Germany crashed heavily near the end of their semifinal. Medics tended to both for several minutes, though each of them managed to walk off the track.
It wasn’t the last crash of their competition.
Just as Lavreysen hit the front stretch of the finals, Kaiya Ota of Japan swerved up the track and collided with Jack Carlin behind him. The British rider went down hard and slid to a stop on the bottom of the track, where he lay motionless for a moment while medics rushed to check on him. Carlin eventually stood up and was able to walk off the track.
Lavreysen won the sprint and team sprint gold medals earlier in the week, and then he finished the job after coming up just short of the trifecta at the Tokyo Games. He won gold in both sprint events there but had to settle for bronze in the keirin.
Richardson took the silver medal Sunday to go with silver in the sprint and bronze in the team sprint, while Glaetzer earned his second bronze medal of the Paris Games after also competing for Australia in the team sprint.
“I’ve been sprinting since I was 19. I’ve been riding a track bike since I was 13, 14 years old,” Andrews said. “It’s been a 10-year dream to be here and not one that I always thought was possible.”
Andrews, whose father, Jon, competed at the 1992 Barcelona Games, rode brilliantly in her best-of-three sprint final. The 24-year-old from Christchurch won the opening race from the lead, holding off Friedrich all the way to the line, and then roared around the outside and past her German rival in the second race to capture the gold medal.
Andrews also won the keirin and teamed with Rebecca Petch and Shaane Fulton to win silver in the team sprint.
In the race for sprint bronze, Emma Finucane of Britain swept Dutch rider Hetty van de Wouw, winning both of their races from the front. It was the second medal for the 21-year-old from Wales after her bronze in the keirin.
“I would have loved to win gold, but that bronze medal means everything to me,” Finucane said. “For the last two races, I gave everything. I have nothing else to give.”
