Team GB crush Australia to win team pursuit gold

 

Great Britain’s male team pursuit squad gave no quarter to their most tenacious rivals Australia today as they claimed their second straight Olympic gold in track cycling’s most coveted title and simultaneously demolished their own World Record for a second time in two days.

Spurred on by multiple World and Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins in the velodrome crowd - himself responsible for Britain’s cycling gold rush in Wednesday’s individual time trial and also part of the Beijing team pursuit squad four years ago -  Great Britain clocked a time of 3 minutes 51.659 seconds, shaving almost a second off their own  World Record time and nearly three seconds faster than silver medallists Australia. A few minutes earlier, New Zealand had seen off Russia for bronze.

The latest chapter of a decade-long rivalry between GB and the Aussies unfolded in near-faultless style for the British, forging ahead from the gun. Rather than the repeat of their nailbiting finale in Melbourne’s World Championships in April where the lead changed six times, the Australians were always on the backfoot, albeit drawing dangerously close at one point before fading for good.

“In our ride 90 minutes before” - where Britain had clinically dispatched Denmark to move into a final where either silver or gold was the only outcome -  “we kind of knocked it out, because we wanted to be in top shape for the final”, 2008 and now 2012 gold team pursuit medallist Geraint Thomas revealed.

“Then against Australia it was amazing how fast we were going, to be honest I could have done with a bigger gear.

“It was the same feeling as at Beijing, man after man we were coming through.”

Thomas revealed that he had not been feeling in great shape last week after going down with food poisonin. “I had felt like that I was down to one leg last week. But thanks to these boys, with so much support from them, I came through all right.”

“Geraint went fantastically well, given what he’d gone through,” added Steven Burke, a bronze medallist in the Individual Pursuit in Beijing who switched to the team event for London.

“I’ve thought about this every day for the last four years since Beijing, and today  I just wanted to do my turn and bring it home for the lads.”

Thomas had a well-deserved thought for Andy Tennant, Britain’s fifth Team Pursuiter, who raced as part of the squad en route to Melbourne’s gold medal victory where Britain finally cracked what had been Australian domination at World Championships level since Beijing, but  on the reserve bench yesterday. “Andy could have stepped up, they decided to keep the same team but he’s a big part of all this," Thomas insisted.

One eye-catching detail of this run of British triumphs is that in all four of the timed events so far - the women and men’s team sprint, and yesterday in both the men’s team pursuit and the women’s team pursuit - the GB track squad have set World Records, at least once. A surefire sign that not only are they beating the opposition soundly, but Britain are also ahead by their own, even more exacting standards - and this [Saturday] evening, after the  GB women's team pursuiters clocked the best time in yesterday's qualifier, a fourth 2012 Games track gold could well be within Britain's grasp.

“We’re inspired by both what the other GB riders did yesterday in the other events and we wanted to be part of that, it motivates us more,” Thomas - who will likely now return to focussing on the road, where he has led the Tour’s Best Young Rider competition in 2010 and 2011 - commented.

“It hows how good the squad was, there was a lot of talk after Bejing about how we’d have to live up to all these expectation after winning all those medals there, but we’re managing to do that,”

“Whenever anybody gets up on the track, they’re thinking about going for the win.”

 

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
Caption competition
Caption competition
News in pictures
World news in pictures
Sport blogs

New day (slowly) rising – As Brasileirão gets underway, Brazilian football stumbles, rather than leaps into the future

The average Serie A crowd last year was 13,000 - comparable to Australia’s A-League.

by James Young

iBet: Mercedes and Hamilton to roar in Monaco

Monaco is a street circuit where driver ability is more important than anywhere else and if we take ...

by Gareth Purnell

On The Road at the Giro d’Italia: It sounds sadistic, but the team live for the mountain stages

Three weeks ago as I drove off the Eurostar, I remember thinking what a very long time it was until ...

by Martin Ayres

       

Day In a Page

Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

In his first interview since 'plebgate', the former Chief Whip opens up just enough to concede that, in politics, you have to take the rough with the smooth
Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Special report: Met police call for criminal inquiry into former diplomat's Cayman Islands rule
Fallen angel: Winona Ryder on bouncing back from her decade in the wilderness

Fallen angel: Winona Ryder bounces back

She owned the 1990s... but then she disappeared. Now, Ms Ryder is back with quite the bang in her latest role, as the wife of a notorious real-life Mob hitman.
Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

The director's new film, 'Venus in Fur', is one of the raciest on offer
Rev Richard Coles: 'I don’t have any concerns that God is cross with me for being gay and eventually the Church won’t either'

Rev Richard Coles on the Church and homosexuality

The mellifluous, erudite and witty Coles is the nation's most pop-culture-friendly priest
'Baghdad likes to live from crisis to crisis': Civil war looms in Iraq

Patrick Cockburn: Civil war looms in Iraq

The governor of Kirkuk - one of the country's most violent but successful provinces - fears the worst
Written on the body: Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials

Written on the body

Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials
Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

The IoS marks the sixtieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reaching the peak of the highest mountain on Earth
A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

Rupert Cornwell: A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

The destructive power of tornadoes will be as nothing once the Great Plains' vast underground water reserve dries up
Every creature's needless death diminshes us all

Philip Hoare: Every creature's needless death diminishes us all

A 60 per cent decline in our national species should alarm us, yet few of us act. But to mind more about animals would reflect well on society
Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground - and the monks at the heart of it

Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground

Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a 'Buddhist Bin Laden'.
Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

You can’t always depend on the weather – but you can avoid the pitfalls of the British barbecue by preparing an elaborate outdoor feast indoors ahead of time...
The Calvin report: Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance

The Calvin report

Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance
10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

Warren Gatland's squad fly Down Under aiming to do justice to the expectations – and hoping the Wallabies stay in the pub
The Last Word: Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally

The Last Word

Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally