Bell tolls too late to save French rider

SAINT QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France : An issue with the last-lap bell ringer caused confusion at the Olympic track cycling for the second day in succession on Wednesday with a keirin race the latest event affected.
A women’s repechage heat involving French rider Taky Kouame ended in chaos as the bell was not rung ahead of the last of six laps of the 250 metre track.
It was instead rung at the end of the sixth and final lap with some riders continuing to race although the faux-pas was not considered by the judges to have impacted the result with Kouame finishing last and failing to qualify.
“Really this should not be going wrong at the Olympic Games,” Britain’s former Olympic team pursuit gold-medallist Joanna Rowsell-Shand, commentating for Eurosport, said.
“That’s a monumental error.”
There was a similar incident on Tuesday when the bell was rung a lap too late while the Canadian women’s team pursuit squad were on the track.
Having crossed the line three abreast after their 16 laps the squad were panicked briefly into thinking that they had miscalculated.
“I was fairly confident that was the last one, and then they rang the bell as we were three across coming across the line,” Canadian rider Maggie Coles-Lyster said.
“We all had a moment of ‘go – go go go!’ because that could be our race over. There was a little bit of panic, and a 17-lap pursuit isn’t ideal – it hurts a little bit.”
Canada were knocked out of medal contention on Wednesday.