Laura Trott won the first medal for hosts Great Britain at the track cycling world championships on Thursday, adding the world gold to the European title she claimed previous year in the scratch race.
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The success from the evening session was in stark contrast to the events from earlier in the day when GB qualified fifth in the women’s team pursuit amid a shambolic display.
Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands was second with Canada’s Stephanie Roorda third. It worked out perfectly for me. “When I was in the racing wasn’t actually feeling that good and I wasn’t going to chase people back to the group so I dug in a little bit and let everyone else work”.
The men’s team pursuit final rounds off the action later when the home crowd will hope to roar Bradley Wiggins and the rest of the British quartet to victory over Australia.
The 35-year-old former Tour de France champion, back to his track roots as he sets his sights on crowning his career with a fifth Olympic title, looked the strongest of Britain’s quartet in a thrilling showdown in the London velodrome.
“I’m lost for words”, he said.
Their time of 3:52:727 was just outside the world record set by Britain on the same boards at London 2012. They’ve really raised the bar in this competition and we’ve got to follow that. We knew it would take a time like that to win and we didn’t produce it and they did.
After finishing sixth in the scratch race and a disappointing 13th in the individual pursuit, a second-place finish in the elimination improved his chances of winning a medal – just the one kilometre time trial, flying lap and points race remaining.
“He (Clancy) went from two weeks ago the medical team saying he couldn’t do any efforts with us and he could only race if he starts in man four because he can’t put too much pressure on his back, to slowly going down the line and he started the race in the gate, all against the medical team’s advice back in Manchester”.
Earlier on Friday, world record holder Anastasiia Voinova of Russian Federation retained her 500m time trial title with a blistering ride.
But Kenny is renowned for peaking for the Games and showed promising signs ahead of Rio by qualifying in second place in 9.767 seconds before advancing serenely to the quarter-finals as Callum Skinner joined him by beating defending champion Gregory Bauge.
A disjointed performance on Thursday meant Britain could finish third at best – and they delivered on Friday to claim a podium place behind gold medallists the United States.
The women’s team pursuit had appeared GB’s best hope of an assured gold medal in Rio but the absence of Katie Archibald, still recovering from a broken knee she suffered in a motor bike crash before Christmas, has seriously hurt the squad. There’s no way of dressing that any
differently.
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“It was disappointing that I guess we found what the limit was at a World Championships”. We tried to give it our best shot here and it didn’t pan out.
