Track World Champsionships - Men's Match Sprint

I've been watching the Men's Match Sprint from the World Champsionships a few times over to see how it played out. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the first round, but here are the second and third rounds. France's Gregory Bauge versus Malaysia's Azizulhashi Awang - such a size difference between the two! There are plenty of small, punchy road sprinters like sprinter du jour Mark Cavendish of High Road, who came from the British Track Cycling team (the only one who didn't medal in the Beijing Olympics!), but it's a bit more rare to see a tiny track sprinter.

Rounds two and three are excellent sprints. In round 2, Awang keeps Bauge on his toes and changes his position frequently to throw off whatever Bauge's game plan might be; then, he disrupts Bauge's acceleration by riding him up track so that he's a bit less prepared to respond to Awang's long, steady sprint, which held off Bauge in those final 50 meters or so.

In round 3 it looks like he tried to do the same thing, but Bauge disrupted it by getting behind Awang and dancing around, throwing Awang off. Bauge had control, and with a lap and a half to go, Bauge was ramping up the pace for the sprint high on the boards, Awang was stuck down low with no way to get control over Bauge's sprint - he was toast. I wonder if he felt like he was swimming back to the boat at night with the shark's splashing noises coming closer and closer. Awang, low on the boards, trying to accelerate while Bauge had the obvious advantage in that Championship sprint.

In other Bauge news, Ethan at Laek House posted a handful of excellent pictures from the Bauge/Sireau crash. I saw an internet mention of this being caused by the tubular rolling, but it looks like Sireau's arm made contact with Bauge, which lifted and turned his bars. He lost traction, turned the bars more, and the tubular rolled while he was going down. Here it is in slow-motion, but really, the photos linked above are better.