Great Britain’s women’s team pursuit squad have been crowned world champions after setting a new world record to see off the challenge of their Australian opponents in the final.
Jo Rowsell, Laura Trott, and Dani King, broke their own record, set hours earlier while qualifying for the final, with a gutsy performance that saw them reel in their closest rival before beating them by more than 1.2 seconds.
The Australians established a lead of more than second after 1.3 kilometres, but Great Britian’s relentless pursuit saw them reel in their opponents and set a new world record of 3.15.720.
Rowsell told BBC Sport that the trio had delivered a more controlled ride than in their gold medal winning ride at the London round of the UCI Track World Cup in February.
“A lot of the Australians were commenting after the World Cup in February that we had home support, but they had that here and we still beat them,” she added.
“It was such an inspiration seeing the men win yesterday and break their world record. We knew the track was fast, we were determined to go out and win as well.”
The two teams had exchanged world records in the qualifying rounds, with Australia reducing the record set by Team GB in London by a second, before the British squad reclaimed their record by riding one tenth of a second faster.
Their new record is was just over a tenth of a second faster again than the record established in qualifying.
In the women’s sprint, Victoria Pendleton has qualified for the semi-finals, which will be held tomorrow. Jess Varnish was eliminated in the qualifying rounds. Pendelton’s arch rival, the Australian rider, Anna Meares, set a new world record for the 200m time trial in a qualifying round.
Ed Clancy is third overall in the men’s Ominium, an eight-event, multi-discipline event, after winning the 250m time trial, finishing seventh in the points race, and tenth in the elimination race.
Women’s team pursuit gold medal final – result
1) Great Britain – 3.15.720
2) Australia – 3.16.943
Women’s team pursuit bronze medal final – result
1) Canada – 3.19.529
2) New Zealand – 3.19.874
