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It's a brutal test of stamina, and also a battle to stay out of trouble as teammates make changeovers that mean riders, at speed, are forced to make split-second decisions to avoid contact.<\/p>\n
And while the Australian team of Annette Edmondson and Georgia Baker was right amongst the chaos at the Tokyo Olympics<\/a> in a crash-filled race, they finished well out of the medals in seventh spot.<\/p>\n Early in the race, Baker slid through a small gap soon after a sprint, which caused a Dutch rider to clip her wheel and go tumbling into the Izu Velodrome.<\/p>\n Two more riders then went down hard on the track. It resulted in race officials giving a warning to the Dutch team for causing the crash.<\/p>\n Then later when fatigue set in, Edmondson hit the deck after a Belgian rider crashed and slid into the Australian at the bottom of the track.<\/p>\n The Great Britain team of Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald easily won gold with a dominant display in banking a massive 78 points, winning all-but-one sprint.<\/p>\n Next best was Denmark (35 points) to take silver and ROC (26) bronze.<\/p>\n Australia started brightly to sit in third spot after about 40 laps, but collected only nine points in total.<\/p>\n The Madison – which has previously only been contested by the men – made an exciting and memorable Olympic debut in Tokyo and is hopefully here to stay in the women's track cycling program.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Australia's Kaarle McCulloch was knocked out of the women's sprint when she lost to China's Tianshi Zhong in the repechages of the last-16 stage.<\/p>\n McCulloch was strong in qualifying, but lost to New Zealand's Ellesse Andrews in the following round by 0.255 seconds.<\/p>\n She kept her medal hopes alive with a strong victory over Yuli Verdugo Osuna and Charlene du Preez in the top-32 repechages.<\/p>\n But her next assignment was a tough one against highly-rated Kelsey Mitchell.<\/p>\n The Canadian was too strong, forcing McCulloch into another repechage.<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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