THE CANADIAN PRESS
BEIJING — Argentina’s Juan Esteban Curuchet and Walter Fernando Perez have won the gold medal in the men’s madison, their nation’s first track cycling medal of the Beijing Olympics.
Argentina had eight points, one more than silver-medallist Spain and two more than bronze-winning Russia on Tuesday.
Zach Bell of Watson Lake, Yukon and Martin Gilbert of Chateauguay, Que., finished 12th.
It was an upset loss for Britain, the heavy favourites with Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins — who was bidding to pass Burton Downing of the United States as the most-decorated Olympic track cyclist of all time — finishing eighth.
The madison is a 200-lap, two-man race where teams collect points in sprints held every 20 laps. Only one rider from each nation is racing at a time.
Brits takes men’s and women’s track cycling sprints
Britain’s Chris Hoy has taken his third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, beating teammate Jason Kenny in the men’s track cycling sprint.
Hoy, the silver medallist from Sydney and reigning world champion, defeated Kenny in two races in the final at the Laoshan Velodrome to complete a perfect week for him. It was the last gold to be decided in the velodrome and left Britain with seven of the 10 gold medals in track cycling.
The silver was Kenny’s second medal. He took gold alongside Hoy in the men’s team sprint on Friday.
The bronze was still to be decided between Mickael Bourgain of France and Maximilian Levy of Germany.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Victoria Pendleton has beaten Australia’s Anna Meares for the gold medal in the women’s track cycling sprint.
Pendleton, a three-time world champion in the event, swept the best-of-three final, 2-0, on Tuesday.
Meares — who suffered a near-catastrophic injury at a World Cup race near Los Angeles seven months ago — won the bronze in the sprint at the Athens Games four years ago.
China’s Guo Shuang beat Willy Kanis of the Netherlands for the bronze.
No Canadians were entered in either event.
Azarbayjani eliminated in 60-kg freestyle wrestling
Mavlet Batirov of Russia has repeated as an Olympic freestyle wrestling champion, defeating Vasyl Fedoryshyn of Ukraine at in the 60-kilogram event.
Batirov, last year’s world champion, won both periods in the best-of-three match, 1-0 on a clinch in overtime in the first period and 2-1 in the second. Fedoryshyn was fourth in Athens at 60 kg.
Batirov, the Olympic champion at 55 kg in Athens, is Russia’s fourth wrestling gold medallist in Beijing, joining three Greco-Roman winners.
The bronzes were won by Seyedmorad Mohammadi of Iran and Kenichi Yumoto of Japan.
Saeed Azarbayjani of St. Catharines, Ont., won his opening bout, but lost his second and was eliminated.
American whiz kid Cejudo wins 55-kg gold
Henry Cejudo, the 21-year-old wrestling prodigy who had wrestled in only one world-level senior tournament before Beijing, has won the Olympic gold medal in men’s freestyle 55-kilogram wrestling.
Cejudo, crying the moment the match ended and wrapping himself in an American flag, defeated Tomohiro Matsunaga of Japan 2-2 on tiebreaker and 3-0 in the best-of-three match. Cejudo was 31st in last year’s world championships, his only prior tournament at this level.
Cejudo, the son of undocumented Mexican aliens who bypassed a college career to try to become an Olympian, assures the United States of winning a freestyle wrestling gold for the ninth consecutive Olympics at which it has competed.
The bronze medallists were last year’s world champion, Besik Kudukhov of Russia, and Radoslav Velikov of Bulgaria. Kudukhov was pinned by Matsunaga in the semifinals.
