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Maggie Coles-Lyster earns world championship title in Italy

Maple Ridge, B.C. native earns gold in points race and silver in omnium at junior track world championships

August 26, 2017
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A day after earning a silver medal in the omnium at the junior track world championships in Montichiari, Italy, Canada’s Maggie Coles-Lyster of Maple Ridge, B.C. won her first career world championships title in the points race.

Coles-Lyster earned meximum points by winning the three first sprints in the 80 lap, 20 km event. In the forth sprint she earned just one point with Chiara Consonni of Italy taking full points. Coles-Lyster then earned five more points winning the fifth sprint. The 21 points she earned in these opening rounds was enough to solidify her win.

Additionally, she was one of six riders who managed to lap the field, all the medalists came from this group. Coles-Lyster finished with 41 points, second place Marii Novolodskaya of Russia earned 29 points for silver and Consonni took bronze tied with 29 points because of finishing a couple spots back on Novolodskaya on the final lap.

The world championship title was the second for Canada at this years championships. Coles-Lyster had a very solid performance in the omnium yesterday taking the silver medal.

Coles-Lyster started the four-event omnium with a fourth place finish in the scratch race. She followed that up with a win in the tempo race tied for the lead with Letizia Paternoster of Italy. In the elimination race she finished fifth eight points back on Paternoster. In the points race, Coles-Lyster was unable to close down the gap to the leader finishing with 115 points to Paternoster’s gold winning 125. Mylene de Zoete of the Netherlands took the bronze medal at 112 points.

“This was the first time I had done a complete omnium like that and it had many highs and lows,” explained Coles-Lyster. “It started well with fourth in the scratch race and then I won the tempo, despite crashing with two laps to go. I went into the elimination tied for first and I had very high expectations for myself, but I got boxed in and I was a little sore from my crash, so I didn’t make the smartest move and ended up fifth.”

This put a lot of pressure for the points race, where I was marked by riders from behind me but had to make up those points. I rode my heart out in that race and just managed to hold onto second,” she said of her omnium performance.

For full results from the junior track world championships visit jrworlds2017.veloresults.com.