Knight In Medal Contention At World Championships

Josie Knight lies fifth at the half way point in the Women's Omnium at the World Junior Championships in Astana.

The 18-year-old Knight from Dingle, Kerry won the Race 2 Individual Pursuit, to add to her earlier sixth place finish in the Race 1 Scratch race and followed it up with ninth in the Race 3 Elimination Race.

That performance means Knight is fifth in the standings overnight, 10 points behind the overall leader Daria Pikulik of Poland and within eight points of the silver and bronze medal positions.

The first seven riders are covered by ten points in a typically close fought Omnium contest at the Saryarka velodrome in the Kazakhstan capital.

Knight took victory in the Race 2 Individual Pursuit with a time of 2m27.556, less than a second slower than her 2km Individual Pursuit Qualifying ride on Friday and more than a tenth of a second faster than her fourth place medal ride yesterday afternoon.

Tomorrow's final three races in the programme begin with the 500m time trial, followed by the Flying Lap and conclude with the Points Race.

In a busy day on track, Knight also competed in the stand alone 7.5km Scratch Race, finishing 12th in the bunch sprint for medals after an audacious late bid for glory was nullified.

Attacking with five laps to go, Knight got a small gap but her rivals were alive to the danger and she was caught before the wind up for the finishing sprint began.

Paying tribute to another day of world class performances from the emerging Kerry rider, High Performance Coach Brian Nugent said:

"We're seeing the very best of Josie here this week. She's worked tremendously hard all year at learning all the different technical elements of the Omnium and she's delivering her absolute best performances on the days that count.

"It's all come together at the right time and Josie is reaping the rewards of the work she has put in. A lot of nations are taking notice of her here and the way she is riding. All credit to her. She's unlucky not to have picked up a medal by now."