After an opening day in which performances had been disappointing and discord had emerged in the Great Britain camp, things went from bad to worse on the second day of the Track World Championships when the women’s team pursuit quartet fell apart in qualifying and ruled themselves out of a gold medal.
Second fastest through the opening 3,000 metres, disaster struck when Laura Trott hit the front and Ciara Horne, who had done a shorter turn and looked to be struggling, lost contact with the wheel of Elinor Barker. Joanna Rowsell gave chase but the group had split and would not come back together, with Trott and Barker sitting up as they rounded the final bend.
In the end they posted the fifth best time, meaning the best they can hope for now is to make it to the third/fourth place ride to try and salvage the bronze medal.
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“It’s a disappointing performance – there’s no way of dressing that any differently,” coach Ian Dyer told a group of journalists, with the riders not giving interviews until the conclusion of the event. “It‘s fair to say it wasn’t as cohesive as it could have been.”
The performance comes on the back of underwhelming displays from the sprint teams on Wednesday, when it appeared that any lingering trace of invincibility that Great Britain used to enjoy on the track had gone for good.
The women’s pursuit team was a big part of that invincibility, top of the world for so long. Australia had removed that aura by taking gold in a new world record time at last year’s Worlds but this is a fresh blow so close to the Olympic Games.
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