Points Race, Women

The women’s points race was a final only race over 25 km. (100 laps), with sprints held every 10 laps. Marianne Vos (NED) had been World Champion in the road race and cyclo-cross in 2006, and in the points race in 2008. But in the Beijing road race, she had missed the winning breakaway on the penultimate lap and placed a disappointing sixth, winning only the field sprint. In the points race she left no doubt as to the outcome. She won the first field sprint, and was leading after five sprints with 10 points. On the sixth sprint she held back but as the field slowed after the sprint she took off and lapped the entire field. The 20 lap points she gained secured the gold medal for her. Cuba’s Yoanka González was in fifth place coming into the eighth sprint, but won the eighth sprint and final sprint to move into the silver medal position. For the bronze medal, Spain’s Leire Olaberria and Colombia’s Maria Luisa Calle, controversial bronze medalist in 2004, tied with 13 points, but Olaberria won the bronze when he placed second in the final sprint. González’s husband was Cuban rider Pedro Pablo Pérez, who had ridden in the 2000 Olympics. Training in early July, Pérez was hit by a car, and was still in a coma at the time of the Beijing Olympics, although he recovered.