COPENHAGEN — Boulder’s Taylor Phinney won the men’s pursuit race at cycling’s Track World Cup finals today after smashing an American record during qualifying.
Phinney, the son of 1984 Olympic medalists Connie Carpenter-Phinney and Davis Phinney, took the men’s race ahead of David O’Loughlin of Ireland.
The 18-year-old Phinney finished with 22 points and second in the final overall standings, won by Volodymyr Dyudya of Ukraine with the same number of points. It was Phinney’s first World Cup victory of the season.
Phinney, who’s been working out with Lance Armstrong, shattered the U.S. record in the men’s 4,000-meter pursuit, clocking 4 minutes, 15.223 seconds in the qualifying round to surpass the mark of 4:19.800 set by Mariano Friedick in 1996.
Eleonora Van Dijk of the Netherlands won the first gold medal of the finals, beating Canada’s Tara Whitten in the women’s pursuit final.
Eight Olympic gold medalists are competing in the meet, which ends Sunday.
