Ivy likes to make her State Championship wins dramatic. So when she began the third and final race of the omnium, she was sitting in a great spot to take the overall win. She won the 500m TT. And she won the 4k scratch race easily. So all she had to do was finish third or better in the 32 lap points race and she would defend her title as state champion. There were four sprints for points in the race and Ivy was sitting in second place with 1 1/2 laps to go. Cheyenne Comer, who was in second place, had done an effective solo breakaway and was racking up sprint points but Ivy was also earning points sprinting against the field. Cheyenne had 11 points and Ivy had 8.
Then it happened. Ivy had a momentary loss of focus and overlapped a wheel of a girl below her. That girl started to move up track and when she contacted Ivy's front wheel, Ivy lost control of her bike and went down hard on the apron. A sinking feeling arose in my throat. I knew that if she was DNF in the race, that she wouldn't get the points and therefore wouldn't get the jersey she had and was earning on the track.
My wife and I ran down to the track and saw that Ivy was OK and was doing a roll out with the judges to check her gearing. I got a further bad feeling when I saw the preliminary results showed Ivy was a DNF and therefore not the State champion she wanted to be all year. John Bergman who had posted the results said to me it might be worth a protest since it happened late in the race. I filed it with the race director and waited to see what the judges thought.
They checked the rule book and it said in a points race that if a crash happens with 4 or less laps to go then the racer gets to keep their points. That meant Ivy had the points to finish the omnium in first and take home another state championship bear jersey.
