Sarah Ulmer Wins Gold: Sheers 2 Seconds Off Record

New Zealand's Sarah Ulmer sheered a further two seconds off her world record set the previous day winning an Olympic Gold medal in Athens early Monday morning (NZ time).

Image courtesy of SPARC.

Ulmer's gold winning race was a stunning display of comeback-athleticism where she lowered the world record to an amazing three minutes 24.537 seconds.

Ulmer was the hot favorite for the 3000m individual pursuit having become the World Record holder at the Melbourne world championships in May.

During qualifying for final races on Saturday and Sunday a battle between Ulmer and her friend and rival Katie Mactier was set.

Mactier had become the first woman to break the three minutes 30 seconds barrier on Saturday breaking Ulmer's initial record by 0.659sec with three minutes 29.945 seconds in the qualifying round.

Ulmer countered the new record clocking three minutes 26.400 seconds in the next heat. The time pushed Australia's Katie Mactier back into second place favorite for the gold medal race.

Katie Mactier won the Silver medal and the Netherlands' Dutch cycling legend Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel made Olympic history adding a Bronze medal to her three previous Olympic medal achievements. The race was her last competition in the event.

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