Belgium's Lotte Kopecky and Shari Bossuyt won the gold medal in the Madison track cycling world championships in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines on Saturday in France.
The Belgian team won with 32 points ahead of France (Clara Copponi and Valentine Fortin, 31 points) and Denmark (Amalie Diederiksen and Julie Leth, 23 points). Lotte Kopecky, 26, had already been crowned Madison world champion in 2017 in Hong Kong, along with Jolien D’Hoore, with whom she had also won the European title in 2016 in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines .
The Madison, also called the American, was the third event in which Lotte Kopecky participated in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, in the velodrome which will host the track cycling events of the Paris Olympics in 2024.
🌈🇧🇪 Belgium 🇧🇪 🌈 2022 UCI Women’s Madison World Champion 👏#SQY2022 pic.twitter.com/cOzwNCwcBX
— UCI Track Cycling (@UCI_Track) October 15, 2022
For the third year running, Kopecky won the Vélo de Cristal (awarded to the best Belgian rider of the season); one day after receiving the prize she continued her winning streak with a gold medal in the World Championship elimination race on Thursday. She then took 6th place in the omnium on Friday. She will still compete in the points race on Sunday.
Shari Bossuyt had given up the omnium, preferring to focus on the Madison. The 22-year-old Courtraisienne had suffered a heavy fall in the Netherlands during the Simac Tour on August 30, coming away with a concussion and having to put racing on hold until the end of September.
