Mark Downey has gotten Ireland’s Olympic track campaign underway in Japan today and fulfilled his ambition to become an Olympian, when he competed in the omnium event.
While the result, 17th place, was perhaps not what he had hoped for, it came after a very difficult build-up due to the pandemic. Making it to the Olympics, for which he and the other Irish track riders had to qualify, was also a major career goal, and now he has reached that level.
Today Downey had to be content with a result that does not reflect what is his really impressive palmares so far in his career. However, the standard at the Olympics also tends to shoot up with top pro road race riders landing on the velodrome from the WorldTour.
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Downey was 16th in the scratch race today, 18th in the tempo race, 19th in the elimination race and 17th in the points race. It was his first ever ride at an Olympic Games, where his main event is the madison with Felix English.
Downey, who turned 25-years-old last month, has been great value for Ireland since his junior days, winning medal after medal at championships and major meetings.
In 2014 he took junior points race silver at the European Track
Championships. He followed that up with his U23 silver at the Euros in 2016. He
also won a
gold medal in the points race at the World Cup in Apeldoorn, Holland, in
November 2016.
He then claimed another
points race gold and a Madison silver
medal followed at the World Cup in Cali, Colombia, in February, 2017. Downey
then went on to win his
third gold medal in as many World Cups. That came in Los Angeles in
February, 2017, when he claimed gold in the Madison with racing partner
English.
And in July, 2017, at the Europeans he took bronze in the U23 points race in
Anadia, Portugal, followed up by a bronze medal in the points race in the elite
World Track Championships in 2019.
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He has also finished in the top 10 in the U23 road race at the World Road Championships and been 2nd on a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir. In short, he is a big occasion rider but at these Games, with his preparation so badly interrupted due to the pandemic and having no velodrome in Ireland, he was up against it from the off.
Omnium: How it was won
The omnium gold medal was won by Team GB’s Matthew Walls; the 23-year-old getting off to a flying start with victory in the scratch race, the first of the four races that make up the event. Walls was then 2nd in the tempo race, behind Jan Willem van Schip (Netherlands).
And when the British rider again placed 2nd in
the elimination race, won by defending champion and top road sprinter Elia
Viviani (Italy), he was in a great position going into the points race.
However, it was still very right at the top going into that points race – which can turn the standings on their head. Walls was leading on 114 points, with Van Schip next on 110 and Benjamin Thomas (France) 3rd on 106 points.
But in that final race Walls only extended his lead; aided by the fact he was among the riders to gain a lap on the main group, thus gaining 20 points as well as taking an intermediate sprint, worth five points, in the process.
Others to take a lap included Roger Klugge (Germany), Yauheni Karaliok (Belarus) and Campbell Stewart (New Zealand). Klugge then took another lap, again with Karaliok and this time joined by Viviani.
In the end, however, Walls took the gold medal with a final tally of 153 points, with Kiwi Campbell taking the silver on 129 points and Viviani claiming bronze on 124 points.
More to come, including reaction from Ireland's Downey.
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