Tenth for English in the Omnium at the European Championships

Felix English has finished 10^th in the Men’s Omnium at the European Championships in Glasgow tonight. The overall standing in the Omnium is based on the final points achieved by riders at the end of four events. English was 12^th in the opening Scratch Race, 8^th in the Tempo, 9^th in the Elimination Race, and 5^th in the final Points Race.

Gold was won by Ethan Hayter from Great Britain, in front of a home crowd. Elia Viviani (Italy) won silver and Casper Von Folsach (Denmark) took bronze.

Speaking after the Elimination English described a frantic race with the last man over the line on every second lap being eliminated – “They’re always crazy. You have to pick a tactic. You could stick in the middle where you use less energy but where there’s a very high possibility of crashing or you could use a lot of legs going over the top. I went for the second option to save myself for the Madison on Monday. But it takes its toll after the fifth or sixth time!

A crash halfway through the race resulted in it being neutralised for a number of laps and once the track was fixed the race restarted – “I had ridden really, really hard before the neutralisation so I think the break probably helped me to be honest. But then it’s never nice to have to go hard, stop for ten minutes and then go flat out again!”

The Points Race was another fast race, with points on offer every 10 laps of the 100 lap race. English gained a lap just after the fifth sprint with three more riders, putting him in 8^th place overall – a position he held until the closing laps when a blistering attack from the Spanish rider pushed him back down to 10^th overall, and 5^th in the Points Race itself.

His performance tonight represented a jump in standard for English – “although my overall result is average at best – I’m really, really happy with how I was going today – like I was fifth here last year but there were always four guys that were miles ahead of me, and I was just the next guy – the best of the rest. Today I was mixing it with the best guys, and I was really comfortable. I was really aggressive, and it shows some real progress from the year before that I’m really happy with.

“We work so hard so to come to these races and be slightly behind all the time it’s like what are these guys doing to beat us still! But now to be really in the mix with them and to give them a hard time – I’m really happy with it.”

Tomorrow will be another big day with Shannon McCurley competing in the Elimination Race and Mark Downey racing the Points Race. Also in action will be Alice Sharpe in the Women’s Road Race.

History is made this week when Glasgow and Berlin host the inaugural European Championships, an exciting multi-sport event bringing together some of the continent’s leading sports, including the existing UEC cycling championships.

RESULTS

Men’s Omnium

Scratch – Felix English (IRELAND) 12^th

Tempo – Felix English (IRELAND) 8^th

Elimination – Felix English (IRELAND) 9^th

Points – Felix English (IRELAND) 5^th

Overall –

GOLD Ethan Hayter (GB)

SILVER Elia Viviani (ITALY)

BRONZE Casper Von Folsach (DENMARK)

10^th Felix English (IRELAND)