Great Britain lay down marker on day one of European Track Championships

The Championships, in Guadeloupe, are the first chance to score Olympic qualification points for Rio 2016 while both of Great Britain's men and women's squad are aiming to defend the European team pursuit titles titles they won in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, last year.

And they got off to a confident start with Ed Clancy, Jon Dibben, Owain Doull and Andy Tennant recording a time of 4:12.022 minutes to finish 1.9 seconds ahead of second-placed Germany in the men's competition.

They will now face Switzerland for a spot in the gold medal final, with the winners facing either the German or Russia team.

The female team pursuit squad of Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker, Joanna Rowsell and Laura Trott made an equally assured start to their campaign recording a time of 4:40.289.

The reigning world champions were four seconds faster than Russia, and will face off against Germany in the semi-final.

� Sportsbeat 2014