Canadian track cyclist Maggie Coles-Lyster endures 'bittersweet' end to Olympic debut

Track cyclist Maggie Coles-Lyster didn't add to Canada's record medal haul at the Paris Olympics but managed a top-10 finish, placing ninth in women's omnium on Sunday.

The 25-year-old from Maple Ridge, B.C., scored five in the points race, the last of the omnium's four races after amassing 96 points over the scratch, tempo and elimination events at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome.

Coles-Lyster told CBC Sports it was a "bittersweet" ending to her first Olympics.

"I was really happy with my first three races. I was on cloud 9," she said. "The omnium has come down to the best points-race riders and I didn't quite have the legs to go with the laps that I needed to take to stay in contention [for a medal]."

Canada opened competition Sunday with 27 medals — nine gold, seven silver, 11 bronze — a national record for a non-boycotted Summer Games.

Coles-Lyster did put herself in medal contention with a third-place effort in the elimination in which the last-place rider is eliminated from the race every two laps. Entering the final race of the multi-discipline event, the Canadian was third with 96 points, 22 behind leader and eventual repeat gold medallist Jennifer Valente of the United States, who racked up 144 points overall.

Poland's Daria Pikulik claimed the Olympic silver medal with 131 points, six more than bronze medallist Ally Wollaston of Great Britain who held off Lotte Kopecky of Belgium at the end of the 80-lap points race.

Coles-Lyster, who started in the sport when she was five years old, was second in the scratch race, the first event in the omnium, where riders try to cover 30 laps as quickly as possible.

She was 10th in tempo, where a point is awarded to the leader of each of the final 25 laps.

The omnium