Women in pursuit of world cup gold

GREAT Britain will aim to ride for gold in the women’s team pursuit today after comfortably setting the fastest time in qualifying at the Track World Cup in Manchester.

Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker, Emily Nelson and Neah Evans topped the timesheets after covering the 4,000 metres distance in four minutes 18.471 seconds, more than three-and-a-half seconds faster than Italy in second and nearly nine seconds ahead of Japan in third.

It was Britain’s fastest time since Archibald and Barker teamed up with Joanna Rowsell-Shand and Laura Kenny to set the world record of four minutes 10.236 seconds in the Rio Olympics.

They will now face the fourth fastest team, Belgium, in today’s first round, hoping to book a place in the final.

The all-British Team Breeze squad set the sixth fastest time, with the young quartet of Rebecca Raybould, Ellie Dickinson, Jenny Holl and Abigail Dentus posting a time of four minutes 28.995 seconds.

Mark Stewart ended the afternoon 12th in the men’s omnium, having recovered from an early crash in the scratch race to finish 17th before picking up fifth place in the tempo race.

That left him on 40 points, 38 behind Frenchman Benjamin Thomas who led the way.

In the men’s sprint, Phil Hindes, Callum Skinner and Lewis Oliva – the latter riding for Team Wales – made it to the quarter-finals but could go no further.

Hindes was within twothousandths of a second off his personal best – set last weekend in Poland – with a 9.757 in qualifying, but lost 2-0 to Dutchman to Harrie Lavreysen in the last eight.

Jack Carlin lost 2-0 to Matthijs Buchli, while Oliva went out to Mateusz Rudyk, having been relegated in their second heat.

Katy Marchant set the eighth fastest time in qualifying for the women’s time-trial, advancing to Saturday night’s finals after covering the 500m in 34.303 seconds.

Marchant also had a successful afternoon in the keirin, finishing second behind Laurine van Risen in her heat to advance to the second round.

However, Team Wales’ Rachel James went out in the repechage.