“It’s the most miserable two and a half minutes you can imagine,” said Vikki Appel, a Southern California Edison senior advisor in IT Services. She’s describing the individual pursuit, a track cycling event consisting of a two-kilometer sprint against the clock.
Appel knows as well as anyone how difficult the race is because she’s the reigning world champion in her age group. Her margin of victory in the individual pursuit at the 2022 Masters Track World Championships in Los Angeles was just over one-tenth of a second. In fact, she won three gold medals in individual and team events, giving her the right to wear the distinctive rainbow-striped jersey signifying her status as world champion. The team pursuit race where Vikki Appel (second from left) and her team won a gold medal at the 2022 Masters Track World Championships. “For track cycling, this is the biggest event there is, and the achievement of what we did as a team is so much better than the individual award,” Appel said, recalling her second gold medal in the team pursuit event. “As a team, we figured out tactics that made us go much faster.”
Appel’s third gold came in the individual points race, which required advanced strategy and on-the-fly adjustments over 40 laps. Cyclists accumulate points based on time, and every 10th lap is an all-out sprint, with the final lap counting double. "Just like in the velodrome, we are all really invested and as a team, we accomplish so much more together." […]
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