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World Track Cycling Championships Day 3: Armistead bounces back for silver

Team pursuiters lose out, but Pendleton cruises into sprint semis

Team GB continued to build for the future on Day 3 of the 2009 world track championships in Poland, but some of that future promise did bear early fruit when Lizzie Armistead rode to a silver medal in the points race despite crashing eight laps from the finish.

Shaken though she was Armistead finished a mere half a wheel down on Yumari Gonzalez Valdivieso of Cuba. Afterwards she admitted that when she got back on her bike she disoriented and didn't know what lap it was, speaking to the BBC her coach, Dan Hunt, said afterwards: "When she reviews that race she'll learn she could've come round the Cuban.

"But she has just turned 20, she's got a lot of racing left in her and her progression has been fantastic.

"To walk away from here with a silver medal is absolutely spot on."

Things didn't go to plan for the men's pursuit team either, the British men finished outside of the medals in the team pursuit for the first time in a decade. Ed Clancy, Steven Burke, Peter Kennaugh and Jonny Bellis finished fourth in the race for the bronze medal. They were beaten by a New Zealand team who they had been over a second faster than in qualifying. Only Clancy featured of the four racing here featured in last summer's Olympic gold medal winning pursuit team. Denmark, the team Great Britain beat in the Olympic final this time went one better to claim gold in front of Australia.

The German rider Stefan Nimke won the 1Km time trial with a blistering time of 1min 0666sec the fastest ever ride over the distance posted at sea level beating the time Sir Chris Hoy set on his way to Olympic gold in Athens. US teenager Taylor Phinney finished second, adding silver to the gold medal he won in the individual pursuit. Malaysia's Mohd Rizal Tisin finished third claiming his country's first ever cycling medal.

British teenager David Daniell finished seventh although he did record the fastest time over 500m. Daniell is using the kilo as a stepping-stone to the sprint disciplines so was understandably pleased with his performance.

The next generation of British riders may be using this world championship as the first stepping stone on the way to greater things but for one of the current crop of British first rank stars, Victoria Pendleton, it was business as usual in the women's sprint. She qualified fastest and then disposed of her Austrailian quarter final opponent, Kaarie McCulloch in two races. She goes into tomorrow's semi final's as clear favourite to retain her world championship crown.

road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.

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