Cycling World Championships: GB pursuit team medal hopes over on day one

Ed Clancy leads the Great Britain team in men’s team pursuit in their doomed bid to qualify on day one of the 2014 UCI Track Cycling World Championships (Getty Images)

Olympic champions Great Britain missed out on a medal ride in the men's team pursuit on day one of the Track Cycling World Championships after a woeful performance.

Ed Clancy, twice an Olympic champion in the four-man, four-kilometre event, combined with Sam Harrison, Owain Doull and Jon Dibben to place eighth in the event, clocking four minutes 04.419 seconds.

Britain, silver medallists in 2013, were the 12th of 13 teams to start and were expected to ease into the medal rides, yet failed dismally to do so.

The squad was depleted and Clancy believes lack of competition for places contributed to the failure. Andy Tennant, the 2012 world champion, was not selected following illness and Steven Burke was also ill and, despite travelling to Cali, did not recover in time.

"We didn't announce it on Twitter, but we've had some problems," Clancy said. "We knew a week ago our back was against the wall. [But] despite the fact we didn't have a couple of our more established riders, we were still hoping to get a ride in the final.

"That's sport. Some days you go better than you think, other days you don't go quite so well. We have tried a different approach. Perhaps it just hasn't paid off."

Harrison was a late replacement for Burke and struggled. "It's like a stack of cards – if one part falls down it all comes tumbling down pretty quickly," Clancy added.