British women set new pursuit world record

Manchester: Great Britain`s women set a second world record in two rides as they won the team pursuit final on the opening day of the Track World Cup in Manchester on Friday.

Laura Trott, Dani King, Joanna Rowsell, all Olympic champions, and Elinor Barker qualified in four minutes 23.910 seconds to earn a final showdown with Canada. And they then went even quicker, clocking 4:19.604 to win the final ahead of Canada`s Gillian Carleton, Laura Brown, Jasmin Glaesser and Stephanie Roorda, who finished in 4:27.803. The times bettered the world record mark (4:26.556) set by Britain in winning the European title last month in the revised event, which previously took place over three kilometres and with three riders and now has additional distance. There was more good news for the hosts as Great Britain`s men won team pursuit gold with a comfortable final victory over Australia. The British quartet of Ed Clancy, Steven Burke, Andy Tennant and Owain Doull were the only squad to qualify in under four minutes in the four-man, four-kilometre event and lived up to their billing as favourites by going quicker in the final. The British squad won in three minutes 58.552 seconds, with Australia`s Luke Davison, Alex Edmondson, Mitchell Mulhern and Miles Scotson second in 3mins 59.064secs. Australia shed a rider for the final kilometre, leaving them with the minimum three for the finish, and Britain`s four men pushed forward, propelled by the familiar partisan din of the Manchester crowd, to take victory. Denmark (4:01.893) were third ahead of Holland (4:03.916). Olympic champions Kristina Vogel and Miriam Welte of Germany won the women`s team sprint in a time of 32.788, with Britain`s Victoria Williamson and Becky James coming second in 33.635, while Chinese trade team Max Success Pro Cycling took bronze ahead of Russia.