Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010: Medals For Millar and Armitstead
The road races cycling competition at Delhi commonwealth games eventually brought bronze medal for David Millar from Scotland and a silver for England’s Armitstead. Millar, though had made it to be a part of the final break, but he was outpaced by Allan
Davis from Australia and Hayden Roulston from New Zealand. Mark Cavendish, the pre favourite for the race could not get into the position on the final lap of the 168 kilometres of the race and ended up with the seventh position.
Rochelle Gilmore from Australia ended up winning the women’s race in a sprint with Armitstead pushed to the second position. Nicole Cooke, the Welsh Olympic champion ended up fifth.
The medal bagged by Millar was first ever for Scotland in the Commonwealth road races. The 33-yearls old cyclist who also represented his country in 40 kilometres individual time trials, while sharing his views about his success told the media personnel
that he really enjoyed race with the team and for him it was a pretty good experience. He further said that it was their first try at the lead out which required from them to do a little more and that too a bit earlier. The cyclist revealed that he was pushed
to the third position as he initially hesitated with the thoughts to get the job done right until the line.
The bronze medal winner Millar was of the view that he should have made the split decision to take the lead as the competition during the race was rather tough. While praising his rivals, the cyclist said that they did a perfect job, and his team too could
have performed much better had there been a clear understanding of how to proceed next in the competition.
He was of the view that for their first attempt being a team, they had not tried it even during the training. Yet, the performance was rather impressive for him which was hoped to get better with the passage of time. He expressed his hopes that at the coming
big event going to be held at London, his team would be in a much better position to outdo the rivals.
On the flip side, for women’s cyclists, the race was rather gruelling as only 37 out of 59 contestants could make it to the finishing line which had to be reached after passing the notable landmarks of the city including president’s palace, Parliament house,
and the much famous Connaught Place shopping centre. Since the roads surrounding the tracks of the cyclists were closed by the police officials, the streets were bereft of the spectators.
As the race began, the initial eight laps were overshadowed by some horrible crashes. Angharad Mason from Wales went off her cycle in a nasty fall, while Laws crashed into a corner barrier. Armiststead too hit her foot with a barrier while she was in the
final 3 kilometres, however the girl did not allow the minor injury to have any major impact upon her performance.
While talking about the incident, she said that one of the cardboard that was fixed on the barrier flew into her and she just escaped having a crash with it, however, she smacked her toe which was pretty swollen and blue by then. To her too, there went a
small misjudgement; otherwise, she had the legs to make it to the gold medal for her.
Cooke, the winner of 2002 Commonwealth Games and the pre-favourite for the event faced an uphill task to repeat her historic performance again. The race eventually proved to be rather unlucky for her as almost all of her team mates dropped out before crossing
the finishing line. Commenting upon the event Cooke said that she knew it right from the beginning that she had to be in front, however she could not help going behind and could only end up with the fifth position.
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