Former Yukoner Zach Bell had two trips to the podium at the track cycling World Cup in Beijing on Jan. 22.

The Watson Lake native won a gold medal in the points race, and a silver in the scratch race at the event, held at the 2008 Summer Olympics site.

The points race is the same event that Bell competed in at the 2008 Olympics, where he placed seventh out of 23 other athletes.

In the points race, every 10 laps there is a sprint for points. The top finisher of the sprint earn a certain amount of points. The winner is the cyclist that gains the most points throughout the 120 laps.

"It's not necessarily who crosses the line at the end,” Bell said.

Bell said he was fairly confident during the 30-kilometre race.

"There was never any time where I was in any real trouble,” he said.

Bell focused on each sprint to get the highest tally.

"I wanted to score as many points as I could,” he said.

Bell said he was one of the most experienced cyclists in the field, which helped to lift him over the tough competition. He said there were about four to five serious threats in the race.

"You're competing against some of he best guys in the world,” Bell said.

He also focused on not making a huge statement right off the bat, as the less-experienced athletes often do.

"They want to make the race really hard at the beginning,” Bell said.

Bell lapped the field early on in the race, which scored him 20 points to move him up in the rankings. He managed to circle them once more to gain another 20 points to add to his score.

"It usually means you're going to do well if you lap the field more than once,” Bell said.

In the scratch race, a 60-lap, 15-km test, the object is to get to the finish first. Bell pulled off a second place finish to secure a silver medal.

"The speed was just really high,” said Bell.

He said the competition was tight between himself and two other racers. Bell sat back a bit and waited until the final two and a half laps to make his move forward.

He knew that if he played his timing right he could move up.

"I just come over really hard at the end and kind of squeaked through,” Bell said.

The 27-year-old headed to California on Friday for a training camp and a few training races to shape him up for the World Championships in Copenhagen in March.