The second day of the European Junior and U23 Track Championships was dominated by Italy, who won gold in five of the nine finals – they also added a silver for a total of six medals – and also set a new world record.
The Italians got off to a flying start in the first event, the junior men’s 1km time trial, with Davide Stella, who had already won the European junior men’s scracth champion on the first day, winning the gold medal with 1’02″448 and an average of 57.647 km/h, ahead of Nolan Huysmans (Belgium) and Jakob Vogt (Germany). The young Italian did not stop there and won his third gold medal in the men’s junior elimination race, ahead of Žak Eržen (Slovenia) and Collin Westbroek (Netherlands).
The remaining Italian medals were won in the team events. They won the women’s junior team sprint ahead of France and Great Britain and the men’s under-23 speed race ahead of the Netherlands and Germany. However, the main highlight was the men’s junior team pursuit race, where Italy not only became European Champion, outpacing Great Britain and Denmark, but also broke the world record for the category with an incredible time of 3’53″980, almost five seconds faster than the previous record, which had also already been set by the Italians – Juan David Sierra, Renato Favero, Luca Giaimi, Matteo Fiorin and Etienne Grimod – on the first day of the European Championships during qualification.
The first gold medal of the day not to belong to Italy came in the under-23 women’s scratch race. The race appeared to be decided, given the lead of Flora Perkins (Great Britain) and Maike van der Duin (Netherlands), but the two cyclists did not get along in the final part and the gold ended up in the chest of Polish Maja Tracka, with Flora Perkins (Great Britain) taking silver and Constance Marchand (France) bronze.
In the women’s junior elimination event, Belgium was the winner, with Hélène Hesters (Belgium) becoming European champion, followed by Anita Baima (Italy) and Sina Temmen (Germany). In the men’s U23 scratch, gold went to Denmark’s Phillip Mathiesen, who snatched first place from Diogo Narciso at the last moment of the race when he looked set for the European title. Elmar Abma (Netherlands) took bronze. Finally, Great Britain, one of the highlights of the first day, took gold in the women’s under-23 team sprint ahead of the Netherlands and Germany.
The European Track Championships, which began on Tuesday and will run until Sunday at the Sangalhos Velodrome in Anadia, continues this Thursday. The program starts at 10am and lasts until 8:51pm (scheduled time), with a break between 2:30pm and 4:30pm.
