Meares beats Pendleton to sprint gold for Australia
Australia's Anna Meares celebrates. AFP PHOTO /LEON NEAL
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Australia’s Anna Meares stunned British rival Victoria Pendleton to win the women’s Olympic sprint title at the London velodrome on Tuesday.
China’s Guo Shuang took the bronze after beating Kristina Vogel of Germany in the race for third place.
Read more: Anna bringing home track cycling gold
Pendleton, racing for the last time in what has been a hugely successful career, had been expected to beat her arch-rival after showing stunning form on the way to the final.
However, the 31-year-old Englishwoman’s nerve seemed to go after she was relegated from the first race, which she won on a photo finish, having made the critical error of coming out of her sprint lane.
The pair got up for the second race, but after Pendleton took the race by the scruff of the neck, following a brief trackstand, she had no response when Meares put in a big turn of pace on the back home straight.
The Australian, 29, won with relative ease at the finish where she pumped the air in joy.
It is her second Olympic title, but first in the sprint, in which she finished behind Pendleton in 2008. Meares won the 500m time trial gold at the Athens Games in 2004.
Pendleton had come to her final Games having set a series of personal bests at a recent squad training camp in Newport, Wales and continued that form during six days of competition in which Britain blew their rivals away on the boards.
Crowned keirin champion on Friday, she began her campaign by posting a new Olympic record of 10.724sec for the 200m flying lap — the opening salvo in the demanding, three-day battle for the sprint title.
But as Pendleton was beating all her match rivals, from Russian teenager Ekaterina Gnidenko, to Dutchwoman Willy Kanis through to Belarusian Olga Panarina and then Vogel in the semis, Meares was going about her business in the same fashion.
The Australian was the only other rider to post a sub-11sec time in qualifying.
She then coasted past Kayono Maeda of Japan, Canada’s Monique Sullivan, Ukrainian Lyubov Shulika and showed similar class in disposing of Guo 2-0 in her semi-final matches.
© AFP 2013The Crowd Says (10) | Page 1 of Comments
Have Your Say
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August 8th 2012 @ 5:02am
DaniE said | August 8th 2012 @ 5:02am | Report comment
Great win by Anna!!
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August 8th 2012 @ 5:07am
lolly said | August 8th 2012 @ 5:07am | Report comment
Great racing from Anna. Lots of moaning though from the Brits about the DQ.
August 8th 2012 @ 6:37am
EcstaticBrit said | August 8th 2012 @ 6:37am | Report comment
What moaning? Congratulations to Anna who was the deserved winner on the night. Overall, tactically superior and on the 2nd run blew Victoria away in the home straight.
August 8th 2012 @ 7:57am
Rugby Fan said | August 8th 2012 @ 7:57am | Report comment
If you look at some of the reader comments added to the reports on UK newspaper websites, a few people are arguing Meares was illegally overagressive.
The BBC commentary team seemed to say that Meares or Pendleton could have been called out in that first race but weren’t surprised the judges penalized Pendleton. After all, the video showed her over the line but was less clear on whether any contact had caused that.
Britain’s dominance at Beijing didn’t go down well in all quarters, so there’s a feeling that tight calls are more likely to go against British cyclists these days. If that’s the price of success, then so be it.
August 8th 2012 @ 8:06am
lolly said | August 8th 2012 @ 8:06am | Report comment
There was complaining from some of the commentary team, though to give him credit for keeping a cool head, not Mark Cavendish.
August 8th 2012 @ 7:24am
Bobby said | August 8th 2012 @ 7:24am | Report comment
I understand the brits frustration, Anna did aggressively elbow her opponent out of the way, causing her to ride over the line when stabilizing herself. I just got the impression Pendleton didn’t want it after that.
August 8th 2012 @ 1:47pm
duckbenny said | August 8th 2012 @ 1:47pm | Report comment
Nope, she didn’t – the BBC commentators were simply wrong. At the initial point of rider contact, VP’s wheels were already over the red line: http://i.imgur.com/Yn0cX.jpg
Was a great race and it would have been nice if the officials didn’t get in the way, but it doesn’t change the fact that they were 100% correct.
August 8th 2012 @ 9:02am
Callum Britlad said | August 8th 2012 @ 9:02am | Report comment
We don’t need to moan re Queen Vic”s DQ! Look what we’ve got gold wise once again compared to, eh Australia for example?! Stop whinging!!!
August 8th 2012 @ 10:45am
Betty B said | August 8th 2012 @ 10:45am | Report comment
Anna’s always been the stronger sprinter of these two. Well deserved medal, after her seriously bad injuries before Bejing.
August 8th 2012 @ 1:30pm
Jock said | August 8th 2012 @ 1:30pm | Report comment
Yeh, well done Anna but congratulations also to Victoria who walks away with a gold and silver from London ’12 to bring her career medal total, from both Olympics and World Championships to nineteen[ eleven gold]. Enjoy your retirement, you deserve it. One very classy lady.