A world record-breaking performance from Australia and a similarly enormous ride from the British team stunned the defending Olympic men's team pursuit champions Italy at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday.
Australia smashed the world record, becoming the first team to ever ride the 4km team pursuit under 3:41 when they set a new mark of 3:40.73, while Great Britain's squad beat Tokyo silver medalists Denmark to move onto the gold medal final.
The result wasn't tough to digest for Denmark's Niklas Larsen, who was looking to turn around the team's 0.4-second deficit in qualifying. "It was a hard one but did what we could but we didn't find those margins from yesterday to today. So yeah, a bit sad about it," he said.
Italy raced with the same four riders who won the gold medal in Tokyo, and Great Britain finished the round with their Tokyo team, while Denmark swapped out two riders compared with 2021, bringing in Carl-Frederik Bevort and Tobias Hansen for Lasse Norman Hansen and Frederik Rodenberg.
Comparative experience wasn't a factor, according to Larsen, when it came to going up against the British.
"They were super strong. I think it's how it is - sometimes you meet some guys who just have a little extra and I think the Brits had a little extra today," said Larsen.
They'll move on to the bronze medal final against Italy, however, so there is still hope for both teams.
Italian coach Marco Villa was similarly philosophical.
"It's sport, it's the Olympic Games," Villa told Cyclingnews. "We know when we arrived at the Olympic Games, we worked hard for three years, we worked on the athletes, on the material - I was not surprised to see the other nations close with us. Congratulations to Australia, they did a strong world record and it will be a nice final tomorrow. We have a final for the bronze, and we will try to do our best."
Villa didn't think it was an issue for riders like Filippo Ganna and Jonathan Milan to combine road racing with track, pointing to the success of Australia's Sam Welsford, Britain's Ethan Hayter and the USA's Kirsten Faulkner, saying "I think [combining road and track] is the way, it's not a problem."
He did, however, suggest that the Olympic schedule could be spread out more to give the road riders more rest before the track events. This year, the road race fell only two days before the team pursuit.
"I hope in the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles they improve the dates of the races," Villa said. "I think for the cyclists that will be nice, so you can see the same riders in the track and on the road in the time trial and in the mountain bike."
Mathieu van der Poel dropped out of the mountain bike event to focus on the road race, while Tom Pidcock fell flat in the road race after winning the mountain bike the week prior.
"It was difficult - it was difficult for Van der Poel racing mountain bike, it was difficult for the men road race riders to race the road and then two days later on the track. We have 17 days of Olympic Games, I think we can split the days better and have riders on the track and on the road."
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