Points Race, Women

This was the first women’s points race at the Olympics, although women had raced the event at the World Championships since 1988. Ingrid Haringa (NED) was a favorite, having won four consecutive World Championships from 1991-1994. The 1995 World Champion was Russian Svetlana Samokhvalova. The Olympic race was conducted as a final only over 25 km. Of the 23 starters, 18 finished, and all 18 were together on the final lap. The leaders on the final lap were Samokhvalova (14 pts.), Haringa (13 pts.), France’s Nathalie Even-Lancien, who had been third at the 1995 Worlds and was leading with 18 points, and the surprising Australian, Lucy Tyler-Sharman – tied for 3rd with Haringa with 13 points. Haringa won the final sprint to garner 10 points and bring her total to 23. But Even-Lancien was able to place second, and the six points she won the final sprint gave her the gold medal with 24. Tyler-Sharman placed third in the sprint, as Samokhvalova was shut out, and the )Australian) won the bronze. Tyler-Sharman was actually born in the United States, in Louisville, Kentucky. But she had been unable to earn selection for US international teams, so she moved to Australia, began competing there, and earned Australian citizenship. Tyler-Sharman was actually better known as a pursuiter, and would win the 1998 World Championship in that event, but the Australian pursuit position in 1996 was given to Kathy Watt. The ninth place finisher was Japan’s Seiko Hashimoto, who was competing in her seventh (and final) Olympics – the Winter Olympics as a speedskater in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1994, and the Summer Olympics as a cyclist in 1988, 1992, and 1996. She won one medal, in the 1992 1,500 metres speed skating.