APELDOORN, Netherlands (AP) Chloe Dygert broke the women’s individual pursuit world record twice in winning at the world track cycling championships on Saturday.
Dygert, who anchored the Americans to another team pursuit gold medal on Thursday, lowered the individual record time by two seconds in qualifying. Then in the final against Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands, Dygert took the record down again by 0.012 seconds to retain her crown.
Dygert took the record time from compatriot Sarah Hammer, the five-time world pursuit champion who retired in September.
“Not having Sarah here was strange, she’s been to every world championship with me,” Dygert said. “But I had a (video) call with her before my final ride and that gave me a little bit of extra energy.”
In other finals, Matthew Glaetzer of Australia won the men’s sprint, Miriam Welte of Germany won the women’s 500-meter time trial four years after she first won it, Szyman Sajnok of Poland edged the men’s omnium, and British duo Katie Archibald and Emily Nelson dominated the women’s Madison.
Glaetzer defeated defending champion Denis Dmitriev of Russia en route to the sprint final, where he overpowered rising British talent Jack Carlin 2-0.
Carlin merely hoped to make the quarterfinals in his first world individual sprint race, and had to compose himself on the podium.
“I was very close to throwing up,” he said. “Throwing up during the Australian national anthem probably wouldn’t have gone down very well ahead of the Commonwealth Games (next month).”
Welte followed up her team sprint win on Wednesday with the time trial victory, beating Daria Shmeleva of Russia to reverse the result from last year.
The men’s omnium went to the final lap, with Sajnok and Jan Willem van Schip of the Netherlands tied on points. Sajnok was first across the line. Simone Consonni of Italy was third.
Archibald and Nelson won eight of the 12 sprints in the Madison, all eight in a row. Archibald didn’t defend her omnium title on Friday because she didn’t feel well. Nelson partnered with her only in the morning after Elinor Barker was ruled out after crashing in the omnium. For Nelson, it was her first world title. She and Barker were second last year.
