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Following a busy track season
that included riding two rounds of the World Cup series
winning silver in the team pursuit in Hong Kong, plus three
wins and 10 podiums at the Revolution series, Emily Nelson
earned selection for a home World Championships finishing
fifth in the points race.
Following several months on the road with Team Breeze racing
in Europe and domestically in Great Britain, Nelson returned to the boards in
May for the Coupe de France Fenioux Piste at the Vélodrome de
Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines where she claimed her first top 10
in an international omnium.
Having done only two track sessions since the World
Championships, which was the beginning of March, I knew that I
would feel nothing like I did back then! As a squad we've done
a lot of road racing and training in Britain and abroad over
the past two months, which has been a great experience.
Getting the chance to race on the track was something I was
really excited and looking forward to doing. A couple of days
before though at the Lincoln GP, I crashed just after the
neutralised section after riders came down in front of me. I
finished the race, but was pretty sore and in quite a bit of
pain for the next couple of days and didn't end up riding. It
meant that my lead in to the omnium in Paris wasn't what I
wanted!
The first race of the omnium is the scratch race. The pace was
really on for the whole race as lots of people kept attacking.
I managed to get into a break with my GB teammates Laura
Trott, Katie Archibald and Emily Kay. A couple of other riders
got a lap after we did, with nine of us in total a lap up.
With three laps to go I attacked to the bottom of the track
and lead out the sprint. I was fourth in the sprint, but
Laurie Berthon didn't get the lap so I finished third overall.
In the individual pursuit I didn't get a great start, and it
went downhill from there! I finished eighth in the event, but
it wasn't a good time from myself. The elimination race didn't
go much better for me either! I got caught at the back from
the start of the race and ended up stuck around the top. With
that level of racing, making a mistake such as that is really
hard to come back from. I was out and got a finish of 13th,
which was not a good result. I was placed ninth overall after
day one, which I was really disappointed with. However with
another three races still to go I just took each race as it
came and focused on trying to finish higher overall.
Day two of the omnium started with the 500m time trial and was
followed by the flying lap. Both these events I performed
technically really well in, I'm just lacking that top end
speed needed.
Going into the points race I was in 10th place. I was
determined to move up places and the finish in the top 10
which I've never managed before in an international omnium!
The points race was fast and furious again as lots of riders
wanted to get laps to try and move up places. I managed to get
12points overall which put me fourth in the points race. This
meant that I managed to move myself up to eight place overall
which I was really happy with!
Although overall the omnium didn't go how I wanted it to go, I
was very happy with how I performed and have lots to take
forward to my next track races.
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