Alice Sharpe has expressed her disappointment at the manner of her exit from the elimination race at the UCI World Track Championships in Paris, where she looked to have plenty of firepower in the tank when she went out of the event in 11th place.
The Irish rider looked to be riding confidently, avoiding elimination each lap, before being caught by surprise in the sprint that reduced the original 24-rider from 11 riders to the final 10; Sharpe last over the line in a close-run thing between a few riders at the back.
However, she was also looking to get stuck into the madison, with Mia Griffin, on Saturday to see what they could achieve in that race.
“I’m kind of disappointed with the result, I would’ve liked to have been a bit further up there," she said of today's elimination race. "But I can take confidence from it going into the Madison on Saturday. My legs felt good, but my positioning wasn’t so great in the finish and I got caught out.
Advertisement
“It’s annoying that it was my awareness rather than my legs but at the same time I can take that confidence going into the Madison. We had a good race back in Canada a few months ago so hopefully we can replicate a performance like that again. We’re both in a good place and motivated so we’re excited to see what we can do.”
Related News
For Orla Walsh - who made her Worlds debut in the sprint this evening - her 26th finish in qualifying, from a 34th field saw her move into the 1/16 round, for riders who finished between 5th and 28th. In that round she faced off against Sophie Capewell. The British rider beat her Irish rival, this ending Walsh's sprint race.
“I’m happy enough with how I performed, the 11.079s is not far off my PB time anyway," Walsh said of her time in the flying 200 metres qualifying round. "It’s been quite a long season and I’ve been improving with each race so there comes a point where you need to take a step back and train.
“It was pretty much close to what I was doing in training anyway, so it was what I was expecting," she said of her time. "It would’ve been nice to go faster than my PB but there’s always next year."
She added she had the 500m TT to come at these Worlds and would do her best in that event.
"That’s just full gas out of the gate and it would be nice to do a PB time there. I don’t know where the legs are at with the 500m to be honest because it isn’t an Olympics event, so I was focusing on the sprint. It’ll just be another race in the legs, we’ll see how I go and I’ll try and enjoy it."
