Emma Finucane and Anna Morris doubled Great Britain’s gold medal tally at the European Track Championships on Tuesday with victories in the women’s sprint and omnium.
Finucane, who qualified top with a flying 200m world record on Monday, won every race she competed in, beating her GB team-mate, and fellow Olympic gold medallist, Sophie Capewell 2-0 in Tuesday’s final.
Throughout the day, Morris commanded over the four-event omnium competition, scoring highly in the scratch and elimination races, and winning the tempo race, to go into the final points race tied with Belgium’s Shari Bossuyt. The individual pursuit world champion then won four out of the eight sprints to claim gold with 132 points.
Morris was also part of the British women’s team pursuit squad that broke the world record twice on Monday on their way to the European title. Great Britain’s first gold medal of the championships came courtesy of Joe Truman in the kilometre time trial.
Speaking after her sprint victory, Finucane, a three-time world champion, said: “Yesterday I wanted to execute my ride perfectly, and I did; I came away with a world record and I couldn’t believe it. But it doesn’t finish there, you still have to race races, and the girls were really fast; there was lots of fast sprinting and to come away with this medal and this jersey means so, so much to me.”
Morris, too, reflected on a “really tough” day of racing in the omnium.
“[Norway’s Anita] Stenberg and Bossuyt made the race really hard and the points race was difficult to navigate but I worked hard to score the points and seal the race there at the end,” she said.
“The European jersey is really special, especially in an event like the omnium, so I’m really happy and proud to be taking this back home.”
With two days of competition remaining in Konya, Turkey, Great Britain currently sit top of the medals table with eight medals. In addition to the four golds, the squad has collected silvers in both the men’s and women’s team sprint, as well as the women’s sprint, and a bronze in the men’s team pursuit.
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