Mark Cavendish finishes sixth in omnium at World Championships
By Matt Westby
Last Updated: 06/03/16 12:27pm
Mark Cavendish said he is still keen to race the omnium at the Olympic Games despite finishing only sixth overall in the event at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in London.
Cavendish went into the last of the six events, the points race, just eight points adrift of the podium but couldn't make gains on the riders around him in the standings and eventually finished a distant 30 points off the medals.
Cavendish admitted before the championships that if he couldn't win a medal this week, he won't be able to win one at the Olympic Games, but he revealed afterwards that he is confident of making the improvements needed to reach the top three in Rio.
"I'm not actually too disheartened with how it went," he said. "I didn't make any tactical errors across the whole omnium. My timed events let me down a little bit.
"I don't know if I'm going to the Olympics. That's going to be the next question. That's down to the selectors. We'll talk about it and see what happens. I think I can win a medal."
Cavendish had been lying sixth overnight but then suffered a setback when he could only finish 12th in the 1km time trial.
A fourth place in the penultimate event, the flying lap, brought him back into medal contention and successes in the early sprints in the points took him up to third, but his rivals then started making significant strides up the standings by lapping the field and Cavendish was unable to match them.
Defending champion Fernando Gaviria finished level on 191 points with runner-up Roger Kluge, of Germany, and third-placed Glenn O'Shea, of Australia, but the Colombian was awarded gold due to the fact he won two of the six events.
Cavendish added: "I've improved massively. To be fair, that was an Olympic field. That was the best guys in the world; it's not going to be any different at the Olympics. I don't think it's going to be any harder at the Olympics.
"We'll have a talk - me, Shane [Sutton, British Cycling technical director] and Heiko [Salzwedel, British Cycling men's endurance coach] - and see what happens. It's a difficult decision for them, but it always was anyway."
Sutton said he will sit down with Cavendish after he has ridden the Madison alongside Sir Bradley Wiggins on Sunday.
He said: "We both agreed a podium would be ideal to cement his place, but it is Mark Cavendish, and if you look at it points-wise, he scored a lot of points there but he missed a couple of opportunities.
"Overall, over the six events, he showed some really good stuff and the gains we can make are massive.
"We'll sit down with him and see if this is realistic going forward. We'll get the Madison out of the way and by Sunday evening, we'll sit down with him and see what he thinks."
