Great Britain’s women’s team pursuit squad planned for every eventuality in their UCI Track World Championships final against Germany, apart from the one in which they caught their opponents before the line.
“You never get a catch in a Worlds final,” smiled Katie Archibald afterwards. “I was looking at Cam [Meyer, the team’s coach] like, ‘We didn’t go over this!’ I was quite surprised.”
Still, it was with three laps remaining in the 16-lap race that the gun sounded, crowning Archibald and her teammates – Josie Knight, Anna Morris, Meg Barker and Jess Roberts, who swapped in for Barker in the first round – the world champions. The ride sealed a dominant two days for the squad, who qualified first by three seconds on Wednesday, caught their first round opponents, China, after the halfway point, and then cruised away against the Germans.
“We came out swinging, and I’m really quite happy that we did,” Archibald told Cycling Weekly. “We start quick in training all the time, and it still isn’t the plan. We train to get to 100%, so you can have this buffer at 80%, but obviously on race day, you get nervous, maybe you accidentally give 95%.
“All our training sessions have been really hard, we’ve been really struggling to get it off the line, and then it’s gone hot today, race kit on, race feeling on. That’s what’s tuned us into that result.”
Prior to the competition, Archibald said she was at 80% of her full physical ability, still recovering from a broken leg suffered in June. She raced all three rounds of the team pursuit, and didn’t falter once.
“A lot of pain is psychological, isn’t it?” she said. “Not that it’s not real, but you feel it go up and down with stress. That’s the treat of having something that you care about; it can let you tune into one feeling, and that one feeling, I guess, is the wheel in front of me, not the ankle below me.”
Racing as the defending champions, the British quartet drew out a buffer of more than two seconds after just four laps in the final, a gap that only got larger.
For Knight, the team went into the match-up with a “physical benefit” after only racing half of the first round. “But mentally, it was an odd one,” said the Paris Olympics bronze medallist. “From a confidence perspective, I’d almost liked to have gone the full 4km, to just see what we had. But it didn’t matter in the end, because we caught them [in the final].”
The victory marked a second world title for Barker, Morris and Knight – a sixth for Archibald – who were all part of the squad that won the rainbow jersey in Glasgow last year.
Was there any pressure coming back as defending champions? “People kept asking about defending, but nobody can take away the fact that we won last year, and it was just another opportunity to win again," Knight said. "We had nothing to earn. It was just another opportunity, and it feels really fantastic to have won.”
Earlier in the evening, GB’s men’s team pursuit squad were pipped to gold in their final against the hosts and reigning champions Denmark.
The quartet of Ollie Wood, Charlie Tanfield, Ethan Hayter and Josh Charlton started off fastest in Ballerup, but buoyed by the noise of the home crowds, the Danes fought back to win by three tenths of a second.
“It was only after I bailed after my second turn that I could hear it,” said Wood, who replaced first-round rider Rhys Britton in the final. “It’s actually quite a small crowd, but it seemed extremely loud, so I’ll give them that.”
The Brits qualified top on Thursday, two tenths of a second faster than the Danes, and despite getting quicker throughout the competition, were ultimately held off in the final.
Up against the defending champions, Tanfield said, the squad knew they were in for a "dogfight".
"It always is against those guys," he said. “We gave it absolutely everything in the final, but we just lost out a little bit at the finish. I think we got the most out of ourselves today, and that’s just how it is, isn’t it? You can’t win all the time.”
The home support maintained their fervour throughout the medal ceremony, long after the event had finished. As the winners' names were read out over the tannoy, they were drowned out by clapping. The noise, in fact, barely died off as the five Danes slowly squeezed into their new rainbow jerseys, and a flock of swan cuddly toys was awarded to all the medallists.
There were roars, too, from the Japanese media contingent, when they witnessed their first keirin world champion since 1987.
Kento Yamasaki, a rider who didn’t make the country’s Olympic squad this August, stunned the field when he won the event's final, beating Israel’s Mikhail Yakovlev and Colombia’s Kevin Quintero in a photofinish. The Olympic champion, Harrie Lavreysen, a 14-time world champion, took a shock exit in the semi-final, and finished eighth.
The Japanese fans were on their feet again later in the evening, waving hand-held fans in the air when Kazushige Kuboki won an animated men's scratch race.
The 35-year-old was one of a handful of riders who gained a lap on the field in the 60-lap race. He attacked down the back straight to hold off his opponents, and win his first world title in a career that dates back almost two decades.
New Zealand’s Ally Wollaston also won a maiden rainbow jersey, beating defending champion Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) in the women's elimination race.
“[Kopecky] prefers riding from the front, and I prefer riding at the back, so it worked perfectly for the both of us,” she told Cycling Weekly. “I knew going into the final lap that Lotte was going to be really strong, and when she kicked, I did think for a moment, ‘Oh God, I’m not going to be able to come over here.’ But I think with the dynamics of the track, it really benefits a rider coming round with the long straights, so I knew I just had to be patient and wait for the finish line to come.
"To be able to walk away with the rainbows is something I can’t even put into words.”
Great Britain’s Sophie Lewis finished 15th in the elimination race. Other British results on the night included strong showings from the squad’s two 20-year-old debutants, Noah Hobbs and Harry Ledingham-Horn, who placed sixth in the scratch race, and fourth in the keirin respectively.
“I’m surprised, to be fair,” Ledingham-Horn said. “Making the semis, I was really happy with that. That was a good day out. Then everything went right in the semi-final, and I was even competitive in the gold medal final, which is crazy, to be honest.”
Team sprint gold medallists Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell cruised through to the semi-finals of the individual sprint competition, which will take place on Friday. Should the pair win their heats, they will set up an all-British final for the title.
