Tokyo 2020 - British men off the pace in team pursuit qualifying despite setting new national record
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Updated 02/08/2021 at 12:32 GMT
The British quartet have won gold at each of the last three Olympics in the event, but face an uphill task after finishing fourth in qualifying on Monday. The end of the event was delayed by a spectacular crash for an Australian athlete. You want it? We have it. Stream every Olympic event live on discovery+.
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Team GB’s men will have to beat a dominant Denmark team to continue Britain’s dominance in the team pursuit.
Britain have won gold at each of the last three Olympics in the event, but face an uphill task after finishing fourth in qualifying on Monday with a time of 3:47.507. Denmark set the pace with 3:45.014.
“It was pretty tough,” said Ethan Vernon after the ride. “We had an ambitious schedule that we thought we could hold and we were a bit down on it, that track’s fast.”
The British squad were scheduled to ride last, but had their start brought forward at late notice after Australian rider Alex Porter crashed mid-ride after his handlebars fell off.
But rider Ed Clancy told Eurosport that the change did not overly impact their performance.
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“You never want to see that, but it’s not easy to sit in the holding chairs at the best of time and it got the nerves going, but honestly I don’t think it affected us,” he said.
“In the five seconds we’ve had between getting off the track and getting here to debrief it, I just don’t think we quite had what we were hoping for. We were going really well in Newport, our traditional holding camp, but that hasn’t translated into speed just yet.
“The good news is that we’re still in the game.”
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Britain's Ethan Vernon prepares to compete in the men's track cycling team pursuit qualifying event during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Izu Velodrome in Izu, Japan, on August 2, 2021.
Image credit: Getty Images
Team GB have won each of the last three Olympic gold medals in the men’s team pursuit.
And Bradley Wiggins, who was part of the winning team in that event back in 2008, says that other countries have caught up with the Brits over the last Olympic cycle.
“It’s not what we’re used to. Historically over the last three Olympiads we’ve won the men’s team pursuit. so we’ve got a great pedigree in this race.
But a lot of the other nations have really caught up with us over the last couple of years, particularly on the technology side – there’s been some real classy and shiny bikes flying around here today.
“The Danes lived up to the expectation - they broke the world record let’s not forget in March 2020. They’ve come back and backed-up that performance from last year and broke the Olympic record here by well over five seconds.
“Italy were really the wildcards for this and they are the underdogs, but were only 0.8 behind the Danes.
But the Brits will probably get beaten by the Danes I think it’s fair to say, two and a half seconds over a 4km team pursuit is quite a distance to make up.
“They’ve got time to recompose now, is it enough to find something a bit special? When you have two teams on the track as opposed to the one today, conditions are a bit faster, you get dragged along by the other team.
“I think it’s a bit beyond them, but they are still in the game.”
The next round of the men’s team pursuit will take place on Tuesday, with the medal races scheduled for Wednesday morning.
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