Jennifer Valente looks on at the track cycling world championships on March 1, 2019 in Pruszkow, Poland.
Jennifer Valente has been on the podium several times this season for her performance in the women’s omnium, and on Friday she earned the bronze medal in the event at the track cycling world championships in Pruszkow, Poland.
It is the first U.S. medal at the 2019 track cycling worlds.
This is Valente’s sixth world championship medal. Last year she helped the U.S. women’s pursuit team win a third straight gold medal and she also brought home a silver medal in the points race. Valente also won the silver medal in the individual pursuit in 2015. She is an Olympic silver medalist in team pursuit from the Olympic Games Rio 2016.
The omnium is one of cycling’s more challenging tests, with four races in one day. Valente had medaled three times in the event on this year’s world cup circuit before heading into the world championships.
She kicked things off well with a third-place finish in the scratch race to earn 36 points, then finished 13th in the tempo race. That bumped her down to eighth place, but Valente was about to have her best result of the day. She came back to win the elimination race, holding off defending omnium world champion Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands and jumped up to fourth place. Then in the points race, the final contest of the event, she earned enough sprint points despite a crash to climb into third place overall.
Wild successfully defended her title and Italy’s Letizia Paternoster won the silver.
Valente will also compete in Sunday’s points race, looking to add another piece of hardware to the collection.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
