Getting back in after crashing at the Euro Champs in October (Photo: Fred Draisma www.fwd-photo.nl)
Ireland’s Martyn Irvine has underlined his high world standing on the velodrome by finishing fifth in the Beijing World Cup omnium.
The points bagged with that performance moves him into sixth in the World Cup overall. More importantly, he is now sitting eight in the European rankings, just inside the Olympic qualification places.
He had been in tenth place in the Beijing meeting going into today’s second day of competition at the World Cup.
However, fifth place today in the individual pursuit, followed by a very strong second in the scratch race and seventh in the 1km TT, moving him up to fifth overall.
He won the final sprint in the scratch race but the Italian Omar Bertazzo had gained a lap on the rest of the field meaning he was assured of victory.
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The Beijing event was won overall by Glenn O’Shea of Australia with Bryan Coquard of France in second and German rider Nikias Arndt in third.
Irvine continues to get stronger at each meeting and also appears to be much more experience now, improving his track craft at every outing.
He now has the final World Cup meeting in London next month to score more points and hold that valuable eight place in the European rankings, or even to move higher.
The final event that counts for Olympic qualification is the UCI World Championships in Australia in April.
If Irvine is still in the top eight in Europe after that, he has booked Ireland a place for London 2012.
He told stickybottle after his last World Cup outing in Cali, Colombia, that while qualifying for London would be tough, he felt he could do it.
It’s beginning to look like he wasn’t wrong.
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