Obree's hot pursuit wins world title World title success for Obree

Cycling

Cycling

Graeme Obree, disqualified last year because of his riding style, hit back by powering to the men's individual 4,000 metres pursuit title at the World Championships in Bogota, Colombia.

Obree, who had won the title in 1993, beat Italy's Andrea Collinelli by one-and-a-half seconds in a dramatic final on Wednesday evening which saw the lead change hands five times.

The 30-year-old British champion, who will challenge for the world hour record at the Superdrome 2 meeting in Manchester next month, had earlier beaten Philippe Ermenault, of France, in the semi-finals in a repeat of the 1993 final.

The win made up for the disappointment of last year's championship, when he was disqualified on the first day after the World Union ruled his style was illegal. The WCU had previously told him his downhill-skier position was against the rules of the sport. After winning the event, Obree said repeated his intention to sue the WCU for that disqualification.

The Scot started badly, trailing by 0.3sec after two laps, but closed the gap and then opened up a large lead after the half-way mark. He then had stave off a late challenge by the Italian, which faded in the last two laps.

"It was very hard," he said. "I didn't know I had won until I crossed the finish line and saw the clock. He [Collinelli] is very difficult to race against. He keeps coming back at you."

Obree's final time of 4min 24.182sec was considerably slower than his 4:22.917 in the semi-final, which he blamed on rain which fell between the two races and ruined any chance of a new world record. "The atmosphere was not so good after the rain and the temperature dropped very quickly," said Obree, who holds the world record at 4:20.894.

Canada's Curt Harnett, however, managed to set a world record in the men's 200 metres sprint yesterday when he became the first man to break the 10-second barrier with a time of 9.865sec. Minutes earlier, Spain's Jose Manuel Moreno had broken the same record in 10.008sec. Three other riders also broke the 10-second barrier - Australia's Darryn Hill (9.926sec) and Gary Neiwand (9.935) and France's Frederic Magne (9.978) - but they were unable to equal Harnett's lead.

Obree will make a renewed assault on the world one-hour record - cycling's blue riband event - during the Saturday session of the two-day meeting at the Manchester Velodrome on 13 to 14 October. The world No 1, Tony Rominger who set the record of 55.291 km (equivalent to 34.55 mph) in Bordeaux last November, rides in the opening session of the meeting.

Jens Fiedler, Michael Hubner and Jan Van Eijden of Germany defeated the French trio of Benoit Vetu, Herve Thuet and Florian Rousseau to capture the Olympic sprint title. The Germans won the 1km event in 58.098 sec. The United States won the bronze medal, beating Spain by 652-thousandths of a second, with a time of 59.289sec.