Having won some great races when he rode as a professional on the road, Felix English got his hands in the air again yesterday, but this time on the track.
The seasoned Irish international proved by far the best in the scratch race at the UCI World Cup in Glasgow; gaining laps and then showing great power and a killer instinct at the finish.
He also took his victory as the Olympic qualification fight is really hotting up, resulting in intense and fiercely competitive racing for every placing.
During the race a glitch on the scoreboard in the Chris Hoy Velodrome almost resulted in him marking the wrong rider.
However, former world champion turned coach Martyn Irvine was track-side and made sure what could have been a lethal error was put to one side.
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The foundations of English's win – his second gold at World Cup level – came early in the race when he gained a lap on the field in a group of four.
He then went on immediately to gain another lap; for most of the contest the only rider in the race to do so.
Once two laps up on many of the riders and one lap up on everyone else, he was in the driving seat.
However, European scratch race champion Sebastian Mora was not going to let the Irish rider have it all his own way.
Mora, from Spain, also gained a second lap towards the end of the race meaning it was a straight-out fight between him and Felix English for gold.
That was a battle the Irish rider won to take a memorable
and impressively controlled win.
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Afterwards he told stickybottle how the race had gone “really well”, an understatement after a fantastic ride.
“I was pretty shattered after racing 200 laps and
crashing 12 hours before but I went
into it with no pressure,” he said of his scratch race after the madison.
“I took a
lap in the qualifier to get through pretty handy. In the final I took a
lap quite early on in that group of four and then went again straight away with a GB rider to
take a second lap.
“Up until
10 laps to go I was the only rider on
two laps so it was just about policing the front of the group and then
making sure I beat the Spanish rider
once he got across.”
Asked about beating
the European champion head-to-head for victory English said that “made winning
even better”.
He explained: “It
worked out in my favour. Mora got his second lap super late so I knew I
had him. I just had to make sure not to make any mistakes.
"I was really aware of what was going on around me. They messed up the scoreboard but I had Martyn (Irvine) there.
"(Irvine was) telling me that I was on the same lap as Mora and not (Max) Beyer, which helped. Otherwise I would have followed Beyer.
"Mora was nervous of being caught and did a lot of
work at the end whereas I did nothing; I was just waiting for the sprint.
“It feels
great to win after being so close on
more than 10 occasions,” he explained of just missing out on medals many times
before.
“It makes up for it and sets us up well for a busy few weeks of trying to take some much needed Olympic points in the madison in Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia.”
Germany’s Maximilian Beyer won the battle for bronze from Great Britain’s Oliver Wood.
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