Colombia wins cycling gold at first Youth Olympic Games Autor: Administrator (marek.psenicka@centrum.cz), Téma: News BMX, Source: UCI Communication Services Vydáno dne 01. 09. 2010 (3066 přečtení) Description: Colombia has claimed the gold medal in the cycling events at the first ever Youth Olympic Games (YOG), currently taking place in Singapore. After seven competitions in four different cycling disciplines, Colombia claims the first YOG cycling title in front of Italy (silver) and the Netherlands (bronze). The innovative cycling format, introduced especially for the YOG, is entirely team-focussed. Each participating nation entered a team of four athletes – one female and three male. All the female athletes competed in BMX, mountain bike and road time trial races. Meanwhile, each male member of the team competed in one of the above disciplines (one rider from each team in each discipline) plus the final road race. Competition between the 32 nations was intense, with the overall standings changing after nearly each discipline. However Colombia was strong from the outset, already lying second behind Italy after the opening mountain bike events. Italy remained in the lead after the men’s road time trial but slipped to fourth following the BMX competitions where Colombia won the men’s competition with David Oquendo. Brazil’s Mayara Perez, a former trainee at the World Cycling Centre in Aigle, Switzerland, won the women’s BMX competition. Colombia took the lead in the standings ahead of the Netherlands and Denmark going into the women’s time trial, which was won by Switzerland’s Linda Indergand. The Italian rider Alessia Bulleri came seventh in this event, which was enough for her country to oust Denmark from third place in the standings. Italy’s ascension continued in the final road race event when its rider Nicolas Marini finished third, allowing Italy to overtake the Netherlands and claim the silver medal. Boris Vallée (BEL) won the road race with Rafael Reis Ferreira (POR) finishing second. Cycling is one of 26 sports represented at the YOG, which opened on August 14th and finish on August 26th. The cycling competitions were held from August 17th to 22nd.