Viviani wins Rio gold despite Cavendish crash

Mark Cavendish was lying in third position in the omnium last night and, but for a disqualification in the elimination race, he could have been leading.

Britain have won four of the six track golds in Rio.

Cavendish had been in second place going into the 160-lap 40km points race and he held off the challenge of Denmark’s Lasse Hansen to take the silver medal.

This is why Mark Cavendish was so angered at his exclusion from the team pursuit, because there is never any guarantee of the Olympic gold medal he so craved in an event as unpredictable as the omnium.

Cavendish was third, tied on 126 points with Thomas Boudat of France, while eighth-placed Dylan Kennett of New Zealand, who won the kilo in an impressive one minute 00.923 seconds, was still in medal contention on 110. But he dropped out first in the elimination race and was sixth going into Monday.

But he proved his potential worth in this event with an individual pursuit time only a second shy of Sir Bradley Wiggins’ then Olympic record and that is sure to remain a source of some frustration.

“You feel the Olympics are different, with the public, the media, the pressure, for sure, it’s more complicated”, Gaviria told reporters. “Everyone comes here full gas”.

This is the ultimate track endurance test, cycling’s equivalent of a decathlon or heptathlon, pitting the world’s toughest track cyclists against each other in a multi-discipline two-day event.