Elinor Barker and Emily Nelson made history with silver in the first-ever women’s madison at the World Track Championships in Hong Kong.

The duo were edged out of the gold by Belgium with a bruising battle going down to the final sprint of the 120 lap race.

Olympic team pursuit gold medallist Barker’s silver was her second of the championships after her silver in the scratch race and she has the points race to come on Sunday’s final day.

But it was Manchester-based Nelson’s first medal at a major global championships after she finished fifth in last year’s World points race.

Though Nelson – whose father is Welsh but mother English – has not yet decided whether she will race for Wales or England at next year’s Commonwealths in Australia.

Barker, 22, said: “I was nervous beforehand because we’d only ridden one each before, we didn’t know what to expect.

“I’m not surprised at all by the Belgians winning – they are a madison nation, so hats off to them, they were impressive.”

Nelson, 20, added: “I’m so emotional, I don’t think that has sunk in yet.

“I’m really happy, that was such an exciting race, I can’t wait to do more of them. I think it should be in the Olympic programme.”

The madison features 12 sprints during the 30kms with team’s picking up points if they finish in the top four – with double points for the final sprint.

The duo led after the first three sprints before Belgium started to move clear and it turned into a battle with Australia for the silver.

And that look guaranteed when one of the Aussie rider’s fell after a clash with one of the Brits.

Barker was almost then sent crashing to the ground when a Belgium came down of the banking.

But she kept control to finish the race with 33 points as Belgium won with 45 while Australia were on 26.

The Maindy Flyers product added: “I managed to stay up. I think we whacked shoes a little bit, definitely made contact.

“It seemed a little bit unnecessary, but they race really hard and they won and they’re so smart.

“They spent a lot of the back half of the race trying to box us in and make us afraid, I suppose. It works at times.

“If you’re stuck in a box and a rider in front of you is going to stop, you get a bit scared.

“Maybe it’s something we can learn off them and learn how to not only race hard and try to beat people, but to put people off as well, which I guess is maybe not something that we did.”

 

The event could feature at the next Olympics in Tokyo in 2020 while the duo’s performance augurs well for Welsh medal hopes at next year’s Commonwealth Games in Australia – if Nelson commits to Wales..