Points Race, Women

The race was held as a final only over 25 km. (100 laps), with a sprint every 10 laps. Olga Slyusareva (RUS) had won the World Championships in 2001-2004 and was a heavy favorite. She wanted the gold badly after having won “only” a bronze in 2000. But she started slowly, placing in only two of the first five sprints and in fifth place at the halfway point. Then she scored in all the remaining sprints, winning three of them, to win easily with 20 points. Nineteen riders started, with 14 of them finishing on the same lap.

The early leader was Maria Luisa Calle (COL) who had 12 points in the first five sprints and led at the halfway point. But she failed to place in any of the remaining sprints and originally finished third. Then her doping test turned up positive for heptaminol and she was disqualified, the bronze medal going to American Erin Mirabella. Calle appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and was exonerated; the ruling stating that she had taken only a headache medicine that had been converted to heptaminol during laboratory analysis. Fourteen months after the 2004 Olympics, Calle was restored to third place and Mirabella returned the bronze medal.