picked up from NST by Arnaz

Uracca finally gets her gold
2009/08/08
Arnaz M. Khairul

URACCA Leow finally got to savour her first Mini Olympics gold medal when the 23-year-old was in dominant form, sweeping aside the opposition in the women's 24km points race at the Kuala Lumpur Velodrome yesterday.
Uracca Leow romped to 105 points total in the women’s 24km points race at the Kuala Lumpur Velodrome yesterday.
She missed out on a medal in the women's individual time trial on Wednesday after being told to stop almost near the finish as marshals had led other riders starting behind her on the wrong route. A tired Uracca opted out of the restart then.Uracca started yesterday by posting the fastest time of four minutes 12.805 seconds to top the qualifying for her pet event, the 3km individual pursuit, which was a long way off her own national record of 3:50.896s set at the Asian Games in Doha in 2006.But the points race saw Uracca running peerless as she romped to a 105 points total, overlapping the rest of the pack twice with solo breakaways. Second placed Nurul Ahmar Badeuzzaman scored 43 points while third placed Jupha Somnet took her bronze medal on 19 points.
"The points race win was good, but I'm still trying to get back into form after having to juggle between my studies and training.
"My time in the individual pursuit was 20 seconds faster than what I clocked at the National Championships, but it's also a long way off my best," said Uracca, who took home the bronze medal from the 3km individual pursuit at last year's Asian Championships."Since I've only really been back in full training mode for three months, I've just trained for this event, and I'll start tapering for the Asian Championships after this. Hopefully there, with an indoor track, I'll be able to bring the times back down."Yesterday's main attraction, the men's 200m sprint qualifying up to semi-finals, saw an intense battle between national elite squad rider Edrus Yunus and Hafiz Sufian, which went to a tie-breaker. Edrus eventually beat Hafiz to make the final today, where he will meet Junaidi Nasir, who beat Harrif Salleh in their semi-final match-up yesterday.Results -- Women's 24km points race: 1 Uracca Leow (Sel) 105 points, 2 Nurul Ahmar Badeuzzaman (Sel) 43, 3 Jupha Somnet (Per) 19.