The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Women’s pursuit team takes gold
Great Britain’s women won team pursuit gold on day one of the Track World Cup at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow.
The only active member of the Olympic team competing in Glasgow was Katie Archibald, a team pursuit gold medallist in Rio.
But she was focusing on individual events and an academy group assumed responsibility in the fourrider, four kilometres team pursuit, which Archibald won with Laura Trott (now Kenny), Joanna RowsellShand and Elinor Barker in Brazil in August.
Emily Kay, Eleanor Dickinson, Manon Lloyd and Emily Nelson qualified second quickest behind Italy on Thursday, but set the fastest time in yesterday afternoon’s first round.
It set up a gold medal ride-off with Italy, who were leading for the entire race until each team lost a rider inside the final kilometre.
The time is taken on the third rider and while Kay, Dickinson and Nelson stayed together, Italy’s Maria Confalonieri lost contact with her two remaining teammates.
The partisan crowd quickly made Britain aware of Italy’s unravelling and the host team seized their chance to triumph.
Britain’s time was four minutes 25.809 seconds, with Italy finishing in 4:27.703secs.
Earlier in the day, Ryan Owens advanced to the men’s sprint semi-finals.
Owens was the second fastest qualifier in the flying 200 metres, which seeds the riders for the head-to-head sprints, in an impressive 9.890secs.