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news
Jess Varnish celebrates a gold medal and world record (© Dene Percy)London Track World Cup: Golden girls - GB women win team pursuit and team sprint in world record times
Great Britain's Victoria Pendleton and Jess Varnish this evening set a new world record of 32.654 seconds for the team sprint as they beat world champions Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch to win the first gold medal of the London round of the UCI Track World Cup Classics London at the Olympic Velodrome. Shortly afterwards, the British women's team pursuit squad repeated the feat with another world record performance.
In a thrilling team sprint, Varnish set a new personal best for the opening lap - and the fastest ever by a British woman - of 18.792 seconds, but Meares was two tenths of a second quicker, but with a partisan crowd yelling its encouragement Pendleton put in a second lap of 13.962 seconds to beat the Australian pair and take the world record off them.
Cofirmation of the speed of the London track had come earlier in the day in the semi-finals when Meares and McCulloch themselves had improved their existing world record, completing the 500 metres in 32.828 seconds.
After the final, Varnish said: "I can't believe it I need to pinch myself. I didn't think I could go faster, I was feeling fatigued. But hopefully we can repeat this in the Olympics."
Pendleton added: "It sends out the message that we are a force to be reckoned with. We tried something new with the gears in the final and we have learned something. It was a risk but now is the time to experiment - before the worlds and the Olympics. The crowd were unbelievable - I was shaking on my bike."
China edged out France in the race for bronze.
Meares and McCulloch weren't the only Australian women to set a new world record this evening - the Cyclones team pursuit squad did so in the bronze medal race with the Netherlands.
However, their new world's best time lasted just minutes rather than hours as Great Britain, with Dani King drafted in to join Joanna Rowsell and Laura Trott for the final in place of Wendy Houvenaghel set a time of 3 minutes 18.148 seconds to beat Canada by a deceptively easy margin, with the silver medallists also getting inside the Australian time.
Great Britain's men had to be content with bronze in the men's team sprint, with Ross Edgar, Jason Kenny and Chris Hoy - who picked up his 50th world cup medal - beating Australia in the third-place run-off, having recorded the fourth fastest time in qualifying.
Given recent events off the track, the final saw an intriguing pairing of France, stripped of their world championship last month as a result of Grégory Baugé's disqualification for whereabouts violations, up against the team awarded the world championship in their place, Germany.
Baugé himself went off first for France in a line-up also including Kevin Sireau and Mickael D'Almeida, but Germany's Rene Enders was quicker over the first lap, and Germany, their team completed by Robert Forstemann and Maximillian Levy, led from start to finish on their way to clinching gold.
Thanks to Dene from il Soigneur for the pic
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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18 comments
Kier is English - he's national road race champion in the 40+ category and the team manager of Cycling Club Hackney. CCHackney are doing lots of stuff in Uganda to try and promote cycling and give Ugandans a chance to try bike racing and Patrick lives in London and has just joined the club to see if he can get his time good enough to compete in the Olympics. The club has lent him a bike and tried to help him and Kier is going to give him some training, tech him how to use aero bars etc. and see where it can go from there!
Fantastic evening. GB were behind the Aussies in that race . I don't know how Pendleton made up that time. Very impressive. Back to the velodrome this evening. Can't wait.
Oh right, can Simon explain?
Confused muchly here
Keir aint Uganda is he? If your referring to the blog where he said "He and I will be representing Uganda" I think he means in his role as a coach, just like many other nation's have coaches from other nations.
Patrick looks Ugandan to me and then there is Raja Audi who i'm unsure, he's Ugandan be competing for Lebanon?? it just confuses me totally
Yep, thanks Guitarist.
I hope that this doesn't get taken the wrong way, but he doesn't look too Ugandan.
Would a bike be to obvious?
Are you looking for which race or brand of bike? I think he's a points racer, but bike, not a clue
Yeah, I read that blog, what does Keir Apperley ride?
Dundee, Meadowbank, Chris Hoy Velodrome.
Only a few more in England.
AGHHH, they got it wrong on the news.
Pendleton wasn't team pursuit champion, team SPRINT.
WHAT'S GOING ON!!!
I cant find info on any tracks in Uganda, but i believe there are only 1 or 2 in Scotland?
I'm all for giving him a chance, as long as he's not holding anyone up and doing stupid things on the track, you never know, this might spark some interest back home and in a few years they could have a few decent riders, a bit like China has now
I did come across this though, seems there is another guy to watch out for Raja Audi http://cyclinguganda.blogspot.com/
It has to be said that you do have a point, but like the less well known nations at the world TT champs, give them a chance.
Wonder how many tracks they have in Uganda?
To be fair, thats like me going in for Team Scotland at the commonwealth, wont happen and neither it should. Some of these guys have put in a decade of training and racing to get where they are, this guy just having a jolly
It was pretty impressive considering he'd never ridden in front of a crowd before.
Unfortunately, he was lapped in the first lap by some Chinese whippet.
'Parrently, he was moaned at by Sir Chris and the rest of the men's sprint team for hogging the track.
Ridiculous scenes from Team GB
I missed his ride, was he a bit like Eddy the Eel guy? The swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who took like an hour to swim 100 meters?
Just watching my favourite race, the points, confusing as hell sometimes, specially tonight.
Patrick Lawino
LAD
In case that comment has you confused, have a look at this - what a great backstory and nice to see some real local involvement in the Games for a change.
http://cyclingclubhackney.blogspot.com/2012/02/2012-olympic-hopeful-join...
Some great racing going on, watching it here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/17012358