The Great Britain track cycling team has begun its campaign at the home round of the 2013/14 UCI Track World Cup with two gold medals, a silver, and a bronze.
The imperious women’s team pursuit squad broke their own world record from a qualifying round in the final to record an emphatic victory over Canada.
Dani King, Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell, and Emily Barker, won in a time of 4.19.604, proving that a change to the format of the event – increasing in distance from 3km to 4km, and from three participants to four – will not alter their dominance.
King, Trott, and Rowsell routinely set and smashed their own world records when the event was over 3km, notably in the final at the London Olympic Games, and the addition of junior world time trial champion, Elinor Barker, appears merely to have strengthened their hold on the discipline.
The men’s team pursuit squad continued their dominance over Australia by beating their closest rivals in the first confrontation on home soil since the final at last year’s Olympic Games.
In a further sign of strength in depth, the team continued its dominance without Olympic champions Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh, recovering from a hard season on the road with Team Sky, and instead fielded Andy Tennant, a member of the world championship winning teams of 2012 and 2013, and rising star, Owain Doull. The pair rode alongside gold medalists Ed Clancy and Steven Burke to see off the Australian challenge in a time of 3:58.654.
World sprint champion, Becky James, joined forces with Victoria Williamson to claim silver in the women’s team sprint behind Germany’s Miriam Welte and Kristina Vogel.
The result mirrored the outcome of the final at the recent European championships, when the same pairings duelled for gold in Apeldoorn.
Britain’s final medal of the opening day came in the men’s team sprint, in which Olympic gold medalists, Philip Hindes and Jason Kenny, teamed up Matt Crampton to claim bronze in the ‘B’ final to see off the challenge of New Zealand.
Picture used with kind permission of SWpixcyclingphotos.com.
