Pikulik started third in the scratch race, tenth in the pace and seventh in the elimination race. In the general classification, until the last start, the points race, he was in sixth place, although with a real chance of winning a medal. The battle for the podium was fierce and could have been more favorable for the Pole had he not suffered a crash with 25 laps to go. Pikulik won the last double point, but ended up falling short of the bronze by two points. Norwegian Anita Yvonne Stenberg became the winner.
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Mateusz Rudyk, who already won a bronze medal in the sprint team in Apeldoorn, confirmed a good performance in the individual sprint qualifying round, achieving the second result in the 200m from the flying start – 9.584. Only the Dutch Olympic champion from Tokyo, Harry Lavreysen, was faster – 9.366. The second representative of Poland, Maciej Bielecki, achieved the 19th result – 10.028.
Bielecki finished his start in the round of 16, losing to the Italian Stefano Moro, while Rudyk left the round of 16, where he overtook the Spaniard Alejandro Martinez. In the quarter-finals, he didn't give a chance to the French Sebastien Viget in two races. On Saturday, in the semi-finals, his opponent will be the representative of Israel, Mikhail Yakovlev, with whom he won at this stage of the competition at the European Championship held in Grenchen last year.
The scratch race was won by Yuri Leitao from Portugal. Bartosz Rudyk, Mateusz's brother, was the tenth.
In the 4-kilometer pursuit, in the absence of the outstanding Italian Filippo Gana, the gold medal was won by the British Daniel Bigham. Adam Wozniak took 13th place.
Last Friday's final was the women's sprint. In the final, British Emma Finucane won, defeating defending German Lea Sophie Friedrich 2-0.
Polish sprinters finished their competitions on Thursday. Nicola Sibiak played well and made it to the last eight, but in the quarter-finals she had to face the defending champion Mathilde Gros of France.
mtu, PAP