2007 UCI Track Cycling World Championships - CM

Spain, March 29-April 1, 2007

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Men's team pursuit

Great Britain take team gold

By Shane Stokes in Palma

Triple Olympic medal winner Bradley Wiggins moved a step closer to achieving the three gold medals he is chasing at these championships when the Great Britain team decisively beat their Ukrainian rivals in the final of the team pursuit.

He, Ed Clancy, Paul Manning and Geraint Thomas squad tore out of the blocks and led from start to finish, beating the new national record time they had set this morning and recording 3’57.468. They had the Ukrainian quartet of Lyubomyr Polatayko, Maksym Polischyuk, Vitaliy Popkov and Vitaliy Shchedov in sight well before the end, going almost six seconds quicker in the process.

The time is 0.878” off the world record set by Australia during the Athens Olympics and with their confidence on a high, the GB squad must fancy their chances of beating this in the future. “I think that is a possibility all right, that is what we are aiming for,” said performance manager Dave Brailsford after the presentation.

“It is great, really. To do a performance like that the first time this morning and to back it up with a ride like that is just great,” said Geraint Thomas. “We didn’t have any idea we were going so fast there. It seemed like we were on the normal schedule, the pace was even split the whole way through. The ride just felt so easy compared to what we did this morning, it was super.

“When they said the time we got I was a little bit gutted, actually, I felt I had that little bit more in me to go for the world record. I think we all did, but it was mainly just about winning this. It shows that we are really moving up a level now and just putting the message out there.”

He thinks they can aim for that standard in the future. “I am definitely confident that the world record is on, I don’t see why not. I think the worlds in Manchester next year would be a real good place to do it but anyway I think we definitely have the potential to do it. We have a real good squad of six people – well, seven, including Steve [Cummings]. It is just getting better and better.”

Wiggins was very content with his second gold. “You try to control it for two kilometres but after that you are just racing for the line. The time is irrelevant to me, I just wanted to win the world title. Once I saw them in front of us, I knew we had won it so it was just easy then, we were really relaxed. It was only afterwards when we were doing the interviews that I saw what time we had done. It just makes it more special, really, to do that.”

In the race for bronze, Denmark’s team of Casper Jorgensen, Jenserik Madsen, Michael Morkov and Alex Rasmussen were fractionally slower out of the blocks than New Zealand but very quickly got on top, opening up a 2.498” advantage by the finish.

Results

Qualification
 
1 Great Britain         3.59.579 (60.105 km/h)
 Edward Clancy           
 Thomas Geraint          
 Paul Manning            
 Bradley Wiggins         
2 Ukraine               4.05.039
 Roman Kononenko         
 Lyubomyr Polatayko      
 Maksym Polischyuk       
 Vitaliy Shchedov        
3 Denmark               4.05.307
 Casper Jorgensen        
 Jenserik Madsen         
 Michael Morkov          
 Alex Rasmussen          
4 New Zealand           4.06.611
 Sam Bewley              
 Westley Gough           
 Peter Latham            
 Marc Ryan               
5 Germany               4.07.221
 Robert Bartko           
 Robert Bengsch          
 Guido Fulst             
 Leif Lampater           
6 Australia             4.07.447
 Peter Dawson            
 Zakkari Dempster        
 Matthew Harley Goss     
 Mark Jamieson           
7 Netherlands           4.07.775
 Jenning Huizenga        
 Ismaël Kip              
 Jens Mouris             
 Peter Schep             
8 Russian Federation    4.08.308
 Ivan Kovalev            
 Ivan Rovny              
 Alexander Serov         
 Nikolay Trussov         
9 Spain                 4.10.098
 Sergi Escobar Roure     
 Asier Maeztu Billelabeitia    
 David Muntaner Juaneda  
 Carlos Torrent Tarres   
10 Belgium              4.11.357
 Dominique Cornu         
 Kenny De Ketele         
 Ingmar De Poortere      
 Tim Mertens             
11 France               4.13.021
 Kevin Lalouette         
 Alexandre Lemair        
 Nicolas Rousseau        
 Fabien Sanchez          
12 Italy                4.19.480
 Gianpaolo Biolo         
 Marco Coledan           
 Giairo Ermeti           
 Daniel Oss      

Final

For gold and silver

1 Great Britain         3:57.468 (57.447 km/h)
Edward Clancy
Thomas Geraint
Paul Manning
Bradley Wiggins

2 Ukraine               4:03.280
Lyubomyr Polatayko
Maksym Polischyuk
Vitaliy Popkov
Vitaliy Shchedov

For Bronze

3 Denmark               4:04.093 (58.993 km/h)
Casper Jorgensen
Jenserik Madsen
Michael Morkov
Alex Rasmussen

4 New Zealand           4:06.591
Sam Bewley
Westley Gough
Peter Latham
Marc Ryan