PARIS, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Benjamin Thomas of France won the gold medal in the men's omnium race on Thursday, despite falling with 24 laps to go in the fourth of the competition's four events.
The Frenchman won ahead of world champion Iuri Leitao of Portugal, while Belgium's Fabio van den Bossche finished third.
Thomas was leading when he fell, and needed around 30 seconds to recover. He said after the race that the main thing he had to do after hitting the boards as riders went past him was to keep his cool.
"I tried to stay calm. First, I checked my bike to see everything was OK. Then, I looked at myself to make sure nothing was broken. Fortunately, I crashed on the right, and it was not such a hard crash," explained the rider, who commented that falling upwards onto the banking of the velodrome meant the fall was "not so hard."
"I watched the screen and saw I was still in the lead. I knew the Portuguese rider [Leitao] was really strong, but not so fast, so I said I would put pressure on him, stay on his wheel."
"I will remember this day forever," he concluded.
The complicated omnium competition is divided over four separate races (scratch, tempo, elimination and points) in which the riders try to gain as many points as possible, by means such as winning intermediate sprints, completing extra laps and finishing as high up the field as possible, with the winner scoring the most points over the event.
The four rounds see them cover a total of 45 kilometers - much of that at a sprinting pace.
Thomas won the scratch race, which saw the riders complete 40 circuits of the 250-meter track.
Van den Bossche won the tempo race, which sees sprints every four laps, and moved into the lead ahead of Niklas Larsen of Denmark after the first two rounds of the competition.
The elimination race in the third round sees the last rider in the peloton drop out of the race every two laps with those who last longest scoring the most points.
Britain's Ethan Hayter was the strongest in the elimination race, finishing ahead of Elia Viviani of Italy and Thomas, but the Briton, who admitted Wednesday he had finished the team pursuit exhausted, couldn't compete in the other rounds. ■
