World Cycling Championships : Britain’s Tony Doyle Wins Individual Pursuit

Great Britain’s Tony Doyle, meeting Denmark’s Hans-Henrik Oersted in the title race for the third year in a row, finally came up a winner Sunday night, beating Oersted by nearly two seconds in the 5,000-meter pro individual pursuit at the World Cycling Championships.

Doyle ended two years of frustration by turning in a time of 5 minutes, 42.11 seconds, while Oersted was timed in 5:44.05.

The bronze medal went to Denmark’s Jesper Worre, who lost to Doyle in the semifinals. He edged West German Gregor Braun, 5:41.14 to 5:41.93.

Earlier Sunday in the semifinals of the 4,000-meter amateur team pursuit race, the East German team scored a surprising win over the Soviets.

The Soviets team was running smoothly past the halfway mark in the 4,000-meter race, but then, Guintautas Umaras and Sergei Khmelinine began to fall behind Viatcheslav Ekimov and Aleksandr Krashov.

The gap between the two pairs--who were supposed to be within inches of each other--at one point was as much as 15 yards.

With three laps to go, Umaras dropped out, and Khmelinine tried to rejoin the leaders, but couldn’t gain any ground and was caught by the East Germans.

The Czechoslovakian team beat the West Germans by nearly three seconds to move into the title race against the East Germans. The Czechs had a semifinal time of 4:16.63, while the West German time was 4:19.132.

Defending champion Rebecca Twigg Whitehead led the field of eight qualifiers into the quarterfinals of the women’s 3,000-meter individual pursuit, then advanced to semifinals with a victory over Tea Vikstedt-Nyman, of Finland.

Whitehead had a 3:46.997 showing against Vikstedt-Nyman’s 3:49.254.

France’s Jeannie Longo, who lost to Whitehead the past two years in the title match, also advanced, by beating Petra de Bruin. Switzerland’s Barbara Ganz beat American Melinda Mayfield, and Linda Van de Berg overcame a scary crash to beat American Elizabeth Davis in their quarterfinal match.

The stem of Van de Berg’s lightweight racing bike -- the part above the front wheel -- broke after she’d gone only 50 yards, dumping her onto the concrete track.

Although she was bleeding and crying after the crash, she recovered and turned in a 3:52.128 to Davis’s 3:57.965 in a restart.

Defending pro match sprint champion Koichi Nakano, who has held the title since 1977, moved a step closer to No. 10 Sunday night, easily beating Australian Lauri Venn in the third round.

Also advancing were Italy’s Claudio Golinelli, Japan’s Nobuyuki Tawara, American Leslie Barczewski, and West German Dieter Giebken.

Americans Kit Kyle and David Lindsey had a crowd of 4,500 on its feet and cheering as they posted the fastest time--10.118 seconds--in qualifying for the 200-meter tandem match sprints.

Also moving into the semifinals were the teams from Italy, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

In the pursuit events, riders start on opposite sides of the track and try to lap each other. If that doesn’t happen, then the rider with the fastest time wins.

In match sprints, the riders start on the same side of the track and jockey for position for 2 1/2 laps, then try to outsprint each other in the final 200 meters.