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Wednesday, August 25, 2004
'Aggro' Bayley claims sprint gold
(AFP Photo) - Bayley beats world champion Bos for sprint gold (Tue 24 Aug, 05:27 PM)
Australia's best-ever Olympic cycling campaign continued this morning as a fired-up Ryan Bayley won gold in the Olympic track sprint with an electrifying come-from-behind victory over world champion Theo Bos.
The 22-year-old from Perth downed the Dutchman with an exhilarating final lap surge to catch him metres before the finish line after levelling the final with a last-ditch lunge to take the second race. He had lost the first in the best-of-three decider.
The win netted Australia's fourth cycling gold medal of the Games, and was the first ever Olympic sprint title for an Australian rider.
The closest Australia had previously come to a men's sprint gold was silver for Gary Niewand at Barcelona in 1992 behind German Jens Fiedler.
Bayley also became the first Western Australian for 36 years to win an individual Olympic gold medal.
German Rene Wolff won the bronze medal ride-off from Frenchman Laurent Gane.
After the race Bayley said his anger at losing the first race in the final had wound him up for the two remaining shots at the gold medal.
"The first round felt like a repeat of this year's world titles when Theo beat me in the first round," Bayley said.
"I got off (the bike), got very aggro, which unfortunately for Theo that's bad news, because when I get aggro I go really fast.
"So I got on to the track and just wanted to nail every single pedal, every pedal went through my head, just going and going, and I just wanted to do everything until on the line and I threw the front wheel off the ground, unbelievable," he said.
Australia's French-Canadian track coach Martin Barras said Bayley had come of age as a champion cyclist.
"Ryan Bayley has come of age today, you've seen a young guy become more of a man today, he is more of a man actually, he is the man," Barras said.
"Between the first and the second ride Ryan came back into the pits and he was that bloody angry, so I had a few choice words with him and just left him to his own devices just to simmer a little bit.
"I knew he was going to take care of his part and it was going to take something very exceptional from Bos to beat him."
Bos, who downed Bayley in the sprint semi-finals at this year's world championships in Melbourne, paid tribute to Bayley's performance.
"I was very close to gold, but I needed to win one more race," he said.
"Unfortunately, I didn't have the good legs any more to beat Bayley. He was better than me today."
Bayley went for home a lap out in the first race planning to catch out Bos, but the Dutchman sprinted quickly and nabbed him right on the finish line in 10.710sec for the flying last 200m.
The pressure was on the Australian in the second race and Bos looked to have the gold medal in his keeping when he pushed Bayley wide on the track and took off for home only to be caught on the finish line by a half-wheel in 10.661.
Bos looked to have again implemented the right tactics in the last race when he slipped under the Australian about one and a half laps from home but Bayley's raw speed again proved trumps in a desperate charge to the finish line in 10.743.
Wolff needed just two races to beat two-time world French champion Laurent Gane for the bronze medal.
Gane, brushed aside 2-0 by Bayley in their semi-final, looked down on confidence as he failed to gather in Wolff in the decisive second race.
It was the second successive Olympics that Gane had lost in the semi-final round.
AFP
# ANTENNA SHARON | 6:00:00 pm |
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