Donavan Grondin gave the French team its first gold medal this week at the World Track Championships in Roubaix in the north of the country. The Habs, member of the Arkéa-Samsic team, won the scratch race this Thursday evening after a dream scenario. Very well placed in the final, when the pack had just taken over the Briton Gavin Hoover with three laps to go, Grondin placed himself at the head of the peloton, started the last lap and was never taken again, excited by the northerner public. Bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympics with Benjamin Thomas in the American race, Grondin (21) won the sprint in this 60-lap (15 km) long race which is not on the Olympic program. The is an individual 15 km race for men where all the runners start at the same time. Author of an impeccable sprint, he easily clinched victory ahead of Belgian Tuur Dens and Briton Rhys Britton. This is the third medal of the tricolor after silver in team speed the day before and also silver, obtained less than an hour earlier by the French pursuit team.
The Italian quartet, Olympic champion in Tokyo, remained master of the team pursuit during the World Track Cycling Championships on Thursday in Roubaix, beating France in the final. Led by Filippo Ganna, Liam Bertazzo, Simone Consonni and Jonathan Milan were almost two seconds ahead of their French rivals in a final that was long undecided, until two laps to go.
Italy achieved a time of 3′47′’192 over the 4 km start stopped. Bertazzo (29), who took Francesco Lamon’s place from the sacred quartet at the Tokyo Olympics, Consonni (27), Ganna (25) and Milan (21) restored Italy to supremacy in the event at the World Cup. His previous title was… 1997 before a long period dominated mostly by Australians and British.
The French, too, have returned to the high level. Absent (unqualified) for the Tokyo Olympics, the group coached by Steven Henry achieved the most convincing performance in its history.
France had not been on the podium since the 2003 Worlds (bronze). Valentin Tabellion (22 years old) and Thomas Denis (24 years old), two licensed runners in the Xelliss Roubaix road team, teamed up with Benjamin Thomas (26), the pillar of the group, and the “ghost” Thomas Boudat (27), 2014 omnium world champion, who left the track after the Rio Olympics. The bronze medal went to Great Britain, who beat the very young team of Denmark, including Carl-Frederik Bevort (17). For her part, Mathilde Gros did not manage to qualify for the last four of the ladies’ sprint tournament. The Frenchwoman (22) was beaten in the quarter-finals by the Canadian Lauriane Genest (23) in three sets. Genest, bronze medalist in the keirin at the Tokyo Olympics, lost in the first round but won the following two. In the Worlds, the Frenchwoman’s best result in speed remains a third place obtained in 2019.
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