Esow Alben continued his dream run at the UCI World Junior Track Cycling Championship as the 18-year-old added an individual sprint silver to the team gold and Keirin bronze medal on Saturday.
The cyclist from Port Blair, who had finished seventh in the sprint’s qualifying with a timing of 10.225, had to come to through an additional knock out rounds to make it to the last 16 where the top-four finishers were already seeded.
He began by beating Great Britain’s James Bunting and then got the better of Australia’s John Trovas to reach the quarter-finals, which had a best of three race format.
In the last eight round, Esow surprised Australian Sam Gallagher, who had finished second in qualifying, 2-0 to set up a semi-final against Germany’s Julien Jager.
It looked like Esow could miss the final after losing the first race against Jager but came back to win the next two under pressure to set up a final clash against Konstantinos Livanos of Greece.
In the fast paced final, Esow managed to level the scores after the second race but could not maintain that tempo and missed out on the gold medal losing the summit clash 2-1.
Among the other Indians, L Ronaldo Singh, who had qualified as the fourth fastest cyclist, crashed out in the quarter-finals against eventual bronze medallist Daan Kool after winning the first of the best-of-three race.
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