The form was there and the will was there, however it was an unfortunate combination of circumstances which marked Mathias Guillemette’s day on Friday, during the fourth stage of the Track Cycling Champions League.
At Lee Valley Velo Park in London’s Olympic Park, Guillemette found himself stuck behind an opponent twice, which prevented him from progressing at the pace he wanted.
In the Scratch race, Guillemette was in the thick of the fight with less than four laps to complete. The Quebecer wanted to try everything, but was unable to respond to the attack of the Dutchman Roy Eefting in the last lap, who went straight to victory.
“This weekend I want to try high-risk maneuvers, moves that will make me win or lose. I wanted to go for it, but today (Friday), it didn’t pay off and I lost. I tried to follow Eefting when he attacked, but it quickly tightened up and I no longer had any room to maneuver,” mentioned Guillemette, ninth overall.
Ontarian Dylan Bibic, first in the provisional general ranking of the endurance events after three rounds, took second place behind Eefting.
Then, at the end of the day, Guillemette was back on the track for the elimination race. As was the case in the Scratch race, the athlete from Trois-Rivières found himself stuck at the back of the peloton on the third lap and was unable to avoid the ax.
He took 15th place while Bibic was eliminated two laps later and finished the race by elimination 13th. The British William Tidball pleased the fans by winning at the end of the event against Jules Hesters.
“I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I think I was unlucky with my positioning. I was caught behind a runner who was looking behind. It’s not a lack of energy, I was just in the worst place at that time,” added Guillemette, who had to take two days off in the middle of the week, bothered by a fever.
After four stages, Guillemette finds himself in 10th place in the provisional endurance event rankings with 56 points while Bibic retains his first place thanks to his 116 points, 10 more than William Tidball.
The fifth and final stage of the Champions League will be played on Saturday, still in London. Guillemette promises to give everything to finish this big meeting in style.
“I will try to burn more cartridges to be at the front at the start of the race. I want to avoid getting eliminated early again. I’m going to go all out to have fun and finish the Champions League in the best possible way. »
For her part, Lauriane Genest was not able to pass the qualifying rounds in both the sprint and the Keirin on Friday.
In the sprint, the first event of the day for her in London, Genest finished third in her qualifying group behind Colombian Martha Bayona and Ukrainian Alla Biletska.
Then, at Keirin, the Quebecer found herself in excellent position at the end of the race, but she could not resist the enormous push from the Chinese Lijuan Wang who gave everything in the last meters to finish in second place. of this qualifying round in order to obtain one of the two tickets for the final.
Genest took third place in the group (0.063 seconds). Martha Bayona took top honors in the keirin, beating New Zealander Ellesse Andrews and Briton Emma Finucane in the final.
Genest is now 12th among sprinters with her total of 45 points. Ellesse Andrews is still at the top of the leaderboard with 133 points.
