Cycling Weekly's gallery from day three at the national track championships>>>
World and Olympic champion Victoria Pendleton underlined her class in the 500 metre time trial by scooping the national track title in Manchester velodrome on Tuesday night.
Pendleton (Team Sky+ HD) clocked a time of 34.262 seconds to take the win from Jess Varnish (Halesowen A & CC), who herself achieved a very respectable time of 35.154. Young talent Rebecca James (Abergavenny RC) took the bronze with 36.012.
Pendleton has made the 500m TT her own and last night's victory was her eighth consecutive win in the event, bringing her national title tally to a staggering 25. An impressive showing from 18-year-old Varnish meant that she was the only one of Pendleton's rivals to come within a second of the Olympic champion.
Paralympian Sarah Storey also performed strongly, clocking a time of 38.074 putting her comfortably within the top ten.
In the men's 'kilo', Steven Burke (100% ME), third in last year's event, came away with gold taking his first national title in a sprint event. Burke, already a three-time national champion in endurance disciplines, set an impressive time of 1.02.604 ahead of Ed Clancy (Halfords Bikehut) and David Daniell (Cleveland Wheelers CC).
Burke, the Olympic bronze-medallist in the individual pursuit, set off last of all to snatch the win from Clancy's grasp by just one tenth of a second.
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Clancy, who was narrowly beaten by Burke was philosophical in defeat. "It was close, but I did a better ride than I'd expected."
"I've been struggling for the past two days in team pursuit efforts, but we're here to train in preparation for the World Cup next week. It's always tough losing when it's so close, but there's no shame in losing to [Steven] Burke, he's a great guy and still only 21."
"My legs aren't feeling particularly good," Clancy added, "we've had a very heavy training week so it's good that we can still knock in some good times".
Very few sprinters contested the kilometre as the event is moving back in to the realms of endurance riders. The shift in participants comes now the omnium is set to be included in the Olympic program come 2012. The omnium, that will be contested by endurance riders, features a kilometre time trial, meaning the riders in line for the Olympic omnium spot will want to get practice at the event.
David Daniell was the highest placed of the sprinters, while Paralympic sprinter Jody Cundy finished seventh.
As well as fighting for the right to wear the national champion's jersey, the riders are using the nationals as a warm-up for next weekend's opening round of the UCI Track World Cup in Manchester.
Results
British Track National Championships 2009: Women's 500m time trial
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