Sarah Hammer wins women’s omnium at 2011-12 UCI Track World Cup stop in Cali, Colombia

American Sarah Hammer won a pair of medals last week during the second round of the UCI Track World Cup in Cali, Colombia.

Hammer took gold in the women’s omnium, finishing no lower than fourth in the six races and tallying 14 points to defeat Tara Whitten (CAN) and Laura Trott (GBR), who finished one-two at the 2011 world championship.

Whitten took the runner-up finish with 28 points while Trott was third with 29.

The contest between Hammer and Whitten was close until the fifth event, the scratch race, which Hammer won while Whitten finished 14th.

Hammer is an automatic qualifier for nomination to the track cycling Olympic Long Team, to be announced December 15.

Earlier in the week Hammer won a bronze with teammates Lauren Tamayo and Jennie Reed in the team pursuit. The trio finished third in the morning’s qualifying with a 3:26.027, just missing the gold-medal round. They bounced back in the evening session, posting a 3:22.090 to win the bronze over Lithuania.

“While the Cali velodrome is covered, it’s still open air and the wind conditions were challenging for the qualifying round,” said Benjamin Sharp, USA Cycling’s endurance programs director. “The final, the next night, was much quicker and we were able to capitalize on that. It’s too bad that our qualifying round wasn’t better as the final with Great Britain would have been very competitive.”

The long-team qualifying standard for the women’s team pursuit is 3:21.575 and Hammer, Tamayo and Reed were a half second off the mark in the final. No riders have qualified to be automatically nominated to the long team in the team pursuit.

The third round of the 2011-12 UCI Track World Cup is set for January 13-15 in Beijing. USA Cycling will be running trials December 8-15 to decide who makes the team.