Aussie Shane Perkins wins his heat
Photo ©: Gerry McManus
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Source: Cyclingnews.com

The big prize money on offer has once again attracted a big field to the JKA International Keirin event. The racing began well – once again – for the home team as Great Britain's Matt Crampton took the first race from Kazunari Watanabe of Japan; the second went to Michael Almeida (US Creteil) from World Kilometre champion Teun Mulder of the Netherlands.

Fresh from racing in Japan, Olympic silver medallist Ross Edgar (Sky+ HD) struck out with more than two laps to go in heat three to take the win, with teammate Jason Kenny – who appears to have recovered from yesterday's crash – following him home.

The repechages saw Denis Dmitriev (Russia), Christos Volikakis (Greece) and Adam Ptacnik (Czech Republic) go through in the first race, and Shane Perkins (Australia) – who also seems to have recovered from yesterday's crash – go through with Denis Spicka (Czech Republic) and Andriy Vynokurov (Ukraine).

"Not too bad," said Perkins of the after-affects of yesterday's sprint final crash, "it just took a little bit to get warmed up and get a bit of the soreness out with the warm up, but the first race was almost the warm up because I was pretty tired this morning. It's all right, I don't feel it too much while I'm out there, but I'm guessing on the plane flight home I'm definitely going to feel it."

"He's going really well," he said of Edgar's first round dominance, "just coming off Japan as well, and obviously he and Jason Kenny are just in a class of their own.

"They raced well, and obviously two of them in the heat sort of helps, gives them more confidence and they sort of help each other out. That always helps, but you can't take away from the good form they've got either."

Looking forward to the later rounds, Perkins felt good about his chances, especially with the added incentive attached to this competition. "My legs are feeling better now I've had a couple of rides and see how we go," he said. "Hopefully we can get in the final and, you know, there's money up for grabs."

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