Gong Jinjie and Zhong Tianshi claimed China’s first ever Olympic track cycling gold medal when they won the women’s team sprint title on Friday, beating Russian Federation in the final. The pair set a new world record of 31.928 seconds in the first round after breaking an Olympic record in the qualifying round. Please be respectful of the opinions of others and keep the conversation on topic and civil.
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Germany, the 2012 Olympic champions, beat Australia for bronze.
Voinova said she was disappointed at winning silver rather than gold, and voiced defiance toward the sports officials who sought unsuccessfully to bar Russian Federation from the games because of state-sponsored doping found there. Team China was heavily favored going into the team sprint.
Britain were trailing for most of the 4,000m race but stormed back to win in three minutes 50.265 seconds – a new world record mark of 3 minutes 50.265 seconds. This is also the first time for China’s track and field team to take both the gold and silver medals in the Olympics. The format consists of two rounds: in the first round, teams compete against the clock to set a qualifying time.
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This event was added to the Olympic program at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
