World records tumble as Britain cling to medal bid
GREAT Britain’s long-standing Olympic men’s team pursuit crown is under great threat after they struggled to qualify from a bizarre session in Tokyo.
Ed Clancy, Ethan Hayter, Ethan Vernon and Ollie Wood’s time of three minutes, 47.507 seconds was almost three seconds faster than any previous British team – in an event in which they have been Olympic champions since 2008.
But Denmark, Italy and New Zealand went even faster, leaving the British quartet with a nervous wait for a top-four place.
Australia were given a second run after Alex Porter’s handlebars crumbled beneath him in a frightening high-speed crash which saw the stem of his bike split in half but could not match their previous effort and finished fifth. That gave Team GB a match-up with world champions Denmark, who came close to breaking their own world record with a time of 3min 45.014sec.
Britain had never previously bettered 3:50 but their while time was a huge step forward they will go into today’s gold-medal race very much as second-favourites.
Clancy said: ‘We were fully prepared for four or five teams to break the world record. If anything, I’m surprised more teams weren’t going quicker including ourselves.’
Laura Kenny, Elinor Barker, Katie Archibald and Josie Knight may have qualified more comfortably but Germany took almost three seconds off the world best they set in Rio.
Kenny predicted before the Games the record would be broken ‘three or four times’ in Tokyo but Barker admitted: ‘We fully expected it to be the Australians or the Americans.’ Team GB next take on USA today.