When ladies’s Olympic observe biking was expanded to the identical variety of occasions as males’s and Omnium was first launched in 2012 within the Olympic Games, supplanting such time-honoured races as the person pursuit and the kilometre time trial for a single, multi-event competitors, it prompted no finish of controversy. But after 4 Olympic cycles and a few extra vital adjustments in format, the Omnium has now turn into a well-established and thrilling part of each the Games and the World Championships.
In 2021, after main a crash-marred collection from begin to end, the USA’s Jennifer Valente claimed the nation’s first Olympic observe gold since 2000 when Marty Nothstein gained the person dash within the Sydney Games.
In the ultimate observe occasion in Japan three years in the past – an honour the ladies’s Omnium will as soon as once more take pleasure in in France this August – Valente’s across-the-board domination allowed her each to beat a crash within the factors spherical and fend off the home-nation favorite, Yumi Kajihara. Both riders might be current once more within the Paris Olympics.
Changed from a six-event format to 4 in 2016 and held over a single day, reasonably than two, for the primary time in 2021, the Omnium now consists of a scratch race, a tempo race, an elimination race and a factors race.
The scratch race is probably the most easy when it comes to guidelines, with the order of ending after 7.5 kilometres (30 laps) deciding the variety of factors awarded to every rider. The tempo race, however, permits opponents to realize factors in intermediate sprints and by lapping the sector. Then the elimination race sees the final rider throughout the road in a dash held each two laps faraway from the occasion.
As the final of the 4 Omnium occasions, probably the most sophisticated when it comes to technique and the occasion the place most factors are awarded, the factors race is sort of at all times probably the most decisive. Riders can seize factors in an 80-lap race in sprints held each ten laps, in addition to gaining and shedding factors for lapping the sector – or being lapped. As a outcome, the outright winner is never determined earlier than this ultimate spherical of racing.
Women’s Omnium opponents
- Georgia Baker (Australia)
- Alexandra Manly (Australia)
- Katrijn de Clercq (Belgium)
- Lotte Kopecky (Belgium)
- Maggie Coles-Lyster (Canada)
- Amalie Dideriksen (Denmark)
- Norman Julie Leth (Denmark)
- Ebtissam Zayed Ahmed (Egypt)
- Clara Copponi (France)
- Valentine Fortin (France)
- Franziska Brausse (Germany)
- Laura Suessemilch (Germany)
- Elinor Barker (Great Britain)
- Neah Evans (Great Britain)
- Sze Wing Lee (Hong Kong, China)
- Lara Gillespie (Ireland)
- Mia Griffin (Ireland)
- Elisa Balsamo (Italy)
- Letizia Paternoster (Italy)
- Yumi Kajihara (Japan)
- Tsuyaka Uchino (Japan)
- Olivija Baleisyte (Lithuania)
- Victoria Velasco Fuentes (Mexico)
- Maike van der Duin (Netherlands)
- Ally Wollaston (New Zealand)
- Anita Yvonne Stenberg (Norway)
- Jiali Liu (China)
- Daria Pikulik (Poland)
- Maria Martins (Portugal)
- Aline Seitz (Switzerland)
- Jennifer Valente (United States)
Women’s Omnium contenders
Unlike within the equal males’s occasion, the Women’s Omnium has a transparent favorite, Jennifer Valente, each defending Olympic Champion and the latest World Champion within the speciality in 2022 and once more in 2023.
But if Valente has not too long ago dominated the roost within the Omnium, her closest pursuer within the Tokyo Games, Yumi Kajihara of Japan, is again to problem her in Paris. Kajihara, too, is a former Omnium World Champion, clinching her rainbow jersey on French soil on the Velodrome Couvert Regional Jean-Stablinski in Roubaix in 2021.
There are loads of different contenders past these two prime names, although, even when Katie Archibald, the British standout favorite and one other former double Omnium World Champion, is not going to be participating because of accidents incurred in a home accident.
Belgian star allrounder Lotte Kopecky, however, has unfinished enterprise with the Olympic Omnium after she deserted on account of a crash in 2021, whereas Italian duo Letizia Paternoster and Elisa Balsamo in addition to Portugal’s Maria Martins and Poland’s Daria Pikulik, all former World’s Omnium podium finishers, are additionally names to look at.
The lengthy checklist of favourites additionally has to incorporate each Amalie Dideriksen (Denmark), who misplaced narrowly to Netherlands racer Kirsten Wild within the 2021 Games battle for bronze and fourth, and Anita Yvonne Stenberg (Norway), fifth in Tokyo and again once more in Paris for extra Omnium motion.
Women’s Omnium schedule
- August 11: Scratch Race – 11:00 CET
- August 11: Tempo Race – 11:57 CET
- August 11: Elimination Race – 12:53 CET
- August 11: Points Race (Final) – 13:56 CET
