6 Aug 2012

Hansen exits cycling sprint after top eight

5:49 am on 6 August 2012

New Zealand's Natasha Hansen has been knocked out of the women's cycling sprint before reaching the quarter-finals.

Hansen qualified as the ninth seed for the top 16 but lost to Ukraine's Lyubov Shulika.

However, she made it through to the top eight by winning her repechage race.

In the next round she again lost to her opponent, this time China's Shuang Gao.

She had one last chance to make the quarter-finals through the repechage but didn't manage to win the race.

Reigning Olympic champion Victoria Pendleton from Britain set an Olympic record in qualifying for the top 16 and is the favourite to take the title again.

Pendleton clocked 10.72 seconds, eight one hundredths of a second ahead of her arch rival, Australian Anna Meares.

Omnium result

Shane Archbald finished seventh out of 18 competitors in the men's omnium, made up of six cycling disciplines.

He had been in seventh place going into the second day of the competition.

In Sunday's first event, Archbald suffered a puncture to his bike's back wheel 2km into the 4km individual pursuit.

He was allowed a restart and finished the discipline in sixth place.

Archbald then placed 13th in the 15km scratch race and sixth in the 1km time trial.

The gold medal was won by Denmark's Lasse Norman Hansen, the silver by France's Bryan Coquard and the bronze by Edward Clancy from Britain.