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Sprint strength France claims third successive crown
Posted: Friday October 22, 1999 02:49 PM
BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- Arnand Tournant, Florian Rousseau and Laurent Gane gave France a third successive Olympic sprint victory at the world track cycling championships on Thursday. The trio beat Britain's Chris Hoy, Jason Queally and Craig MacLean by 0.637 of a second in the final contested over three laps of the 250-metre velodrome. Rousseau, a member of all three of France's world title-winning teams, said: "This result shows just how much strength in depth the French sprinters have. "This is such a difficult event, it's over so quickly that you cannot afford to make a single mistake. You have to remain focused." Hoy, celebrating Britain's first senior world medal in any track discipline since 1996, said: "We've exceeded our wildest expectations by taking the silver. We never expected to reach the final despite our two World Cup victories this year -- a world championship is very different. France were on target to finish among the medals in the three events due to be decided on Friday. Their men's pursuit team headed qualifying and Marion Clignet was 3.6 seconds faster than closest rival Judith Arndt of Germany in women's 3,000 meters individual pursuit qualifying. Clignet's teammate Felicia Ballanger looked set to win her fifth consecutive women's sprint title after an untroubled ride through the quarterfinals.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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