Points racing today, this is always pretty stressful. This race is won by the rider who consistently places highly in sprints every ten laps. Points are awarded to the first four riders across the sprint line. That's the easy bit; the hard bit is to avoid being one of the riders involved in the traditional pile up and the equally traditional trip to the local A & E in an ambulance.
My heat went according to tradition. I won the first sprint and considered that enough to keep me in the top twelve of the twenty four riders and get me into the final. I then sat in the bunch which was hair raising and just before the last ditch sprint effort to make the final, four riders went down and one got his ride in the ambulance. The vet fours second heat crash was so bad they closed the track for repairs.
On to our Final with twenty four riders out of the seventy odd in our age group. I won a couple of sprints early on but those efforts meant I was a bit stuffed and struggling to stay in the pack when the speed was really high. One Argentinian managed to get relegated for dangerous riding twice which kept me in second position till right near the end, where I slipped down to third and a World championship bronze medal.
In the medal ceremony I had two Germans for company. I have a German sister in law and I know she reads these so I have to be a wee bit careful. As we walked on to the podium I narrowly avoided goose stepping and I didn't mention the war, not even once, so that was pretty successful. They raise the German and New Zealand flags which was pretty sweet as they played the German National anthem.
All that charging round behind Ivar's scooter is starting to pay off.
Scratch racing tomorrow and I go home on Friday.
