TRACK | World record nudged as men claim Brisbane gold

Photo - John Veage

Double team pursuit gold medals for Australia highlighted the opening day of the 2019-2020 TISSOT UCI Track Cycling World Cup on Friday at the Anna Meares Velodrome in Brisbane. 

In the men’s team pursuit, world champions Sam Welsford, Leigh Howard, Kelland O’Brien, Alexander Porter plus Podium Potential Academy member Luke Plapp secured Australia’s second gold with an emphatic victory over New Zealand. 

The quartet of Welsford, Howard, O’Brien and Porter claimed the honours in the qualifying stage with the best time (3:50.017), one second ahead of New Zealand. 

Plapp came in for Porter in the first round, with the Australians clocking their second-fastest time behind their world record (3:48.282) and New Zealand (3:48.244) nudging the world record to set up a mouth-watering final.
 
In front of the packed crowd, the two teams arm-wrestled over the first two kilometres, before the Australians rode away to take the gold (3:49.776), four seconds ahead of New Zealand (3:53.601). 

“Wearing our rainbows in front of a hometown was awesome. After winning the silver in New Zealand last week, it was so good to have a win on the boards. It just shows that we have some good talent heading into the Olympics next year,” said Welsford. 

“The conditions this evening were very fast, and they just tapered off with the storm passing through so we were lucky enough to go 48.2 in the first round, which is the second-fastest time we have ever done.

“We are pleased with how we performed today.”

Podium Potential Academy member Lucas Plapp was ecstatic with the result and the overall team effort. 

“The culture of the team is pretty amazing, Tim has been with us the whole way, and Matty Gilmore stepped up for this weekend. We can’t thank our support staff enough,” said Plapp. 

In the women’s team sprint, Poland’s Marlena Karwacka and Urszula Łoś claimed the gold over the Russian Federation pairing of Ekaterina Rogovaya and Anastasiia Voinova in an exhilarating final which was decided by a photo finish. 

Poland was the team to beat all day after topping qualifying before going on to beat Ukraine in the first round heats to book their spot in the gold medal race. 

“We are very thrilled to race in front of such an enthusiastic crowd, this is the first World Cup medal that we have won, so we are very excited to take home a medal and some koalas,” said Łoś.

Reigning world champion Steph Morton teamed with Caitlin Ward to win the bronze medal (33.164) over New Zealand (33.511). 

In the men’s team sprint, the Japanese trio took the gold medal (42.912) beating Poland by three seconds. After topping the qualifying and beating Gazprom Rusvelo by half a second in the heats, New Zealand (43.406) defeated Great Britain (44.177) in the bronze medal race. 

The Australian trio Matthew Richardson, Nathan Hart and Thomas Cornish qualified fourth before falling to Great Britain in the first round heats.

Photo - John Veage