A crash in the Women’s Points Race ended Caroline Ryan’s campaign at the UCI 2016 Track Cycling World championships today. Ryan was the last Irish rider in action at the championships, and had been riding aggressively in the Points Race before Yao Pang (HKG) crashed and slid down the track, taking down the Kildare woman.
The race was eventually won by Katarzyna Pawlowska (POL), with Jasmin Glaesser (CAN) second and Arlenis Sierra Canadilla (CUB) in third place.
The Points Race was a fast one, with no rider allowed to take a lap. While Ryan rode aggressively throughout the race, and was in many of the attempts to lap the field, none of the moves stuck.
In the closing laps of the race Pang (HKG) lost control of her bike and came down, taking Ryan and two other riders with her. Unfortunately Ryan fared worst, being stretchered away from the track with a suspected shoulder injury. More details will be released when confirmed.
Brian Nugent, Technical Director of the Irish team, had been pleased with the performance of the riders over the championships. Speaking from the Velodrome Nugent said “It’s good just to see the whole programme moving on significantly in the last twelve months.”
At the end of the World Championships Nugent believes that the team has established itself well on the world stage, and especially was impressed with the Women’s Team Pursuit saying “Like our team pursuit has improved 8 seconds in a year, and that’s quite substantial.
The biggest gain of any of the teams. This is the highest that the standard has ever been. While the teams at the top are moving one or two seconds further on..we are knocking seven/eight seconds off ours.
It’s exciting to start into the next Olympic cycle when we are already in the top ten in the world, and we are going to keep going because we are one of the newest nations in the team pursuit.”
He was also pleased with English’s performance this week, especially after his tenth place in the Scratch Race, a race won by the recently retired Martyn Irvine in 2013 “With Martyn dropping out this year, and Felix coming in, it’s great that we can go straight back into the top ten again.”
