A fourth place in the omnium for Elia Viviani was the best result for the Italian team in Mexico at the first round of the Track World Cup which was the second of the 10 races that will be used to find the participants for the 10 disciplines at the 2016 Rio Olympics. On the track in Guadalajara, the European champion in the discipline got his chance to take successive wins destroyed. He crashed in the first of the six discipline, the scratch race, forcing him into an uphill battle to try to make a desperate comeback.
Having finished last in the first race due to the crash, Viviani was 3rd in the individual pursuit and won the elimination race. He began the second day with a frustrating 9th place in the kilometre time trial, just 0.7 seconds from the third place, which was followed by an excellent second place in the flying lap. He was still in a contention for the win but it would require an excellent performance in the points race. Here he had to settle for seventh which allowed him to climb to fourth overall, just one point behind American Bobby Lea who had 179 points. German Lucas Liss (192) took the win ahead of Australian Glenn O'Shea (186). Viviani still leads the European rankings in the battle for the sports at the Olympics.
"Because of my bad start, I think it ended well," Viviani told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "The fourth place gave me another dose of points for Rio. What is certain is that the crash in the scratch race was just unfortunate because it was caused by other riders and I was just centimetres from avoiding the carnage. Otherwise I would have finished in 12th place which would have given me 11 points. Then I would have neen in contention for the win.
"Then I did a great pursuit and won the elimination race. And I was even strong in the flying lap. Only the kilometre didn't go well but I probably had chosen the wrong gear. I also lacked a little luck because we were 5-6 riders within 10ths of a second.
"The next race? I don't know. The only certainty is that I'm on vacation for two weeks now."
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