Great Britain set to pursue new record at cycling world championships

Great Britain and Australia took their team pursuit duel to a new level in qualifying at the Track World Championships here in Melbourne, with the GB quartet of Ed Clancy, Peter Kennaugh, Andy Tennant and Geraint Thomas the fastest by a whisker. In the fastest qualifying session ever for the discipline both teams broke the 3min 55sec barrier and the world record set by Great Britain in the Beijing Olympics will clearly be under threat in the final later. As a reminder that these two teams are in a class of their own, the third qualifiers, New Zealand, were four and a half seconds slower. Clancy said: "It was a good ride, that's pretty quick for qualifying with only one team on the track." Great Britain started third last among the 15 teams and produced a perfectly paced ride, which their coach, Dan Hunt, said was "close to being as good as it could have been". The team's smoothness belied the effort they were putting in and it was not until the final lap, when Tennant slipped off the back of the string, that any signs of strain were on display. The time was shockingly fast, not far outside GB's second fastest ever, set by Tennant, Thomas, Clancy and Steven Burke at the Manchester World Cup in November 2009. Qualifying is always slower than a final because, although the teams are always fresher, with only one team on the track they are riding through relatively undisturbed air, whereas when a second quartet is riding half a lap away, the air is already moving, and easier to push through. The GB time of 3.54.485 was the third fastest ever for the distance, just over one second behind the world record of 3.53.314 set by Clancy, Thomas, Brad Wiggins and Paul Manning. Critically, given the psychological battle with Australia, the GB time was just inside their big rivals' 3.54.615 from the final at the Olympic test event in London in February. Having watched the Russians produce a sub four-minute ride to secure a ride-off slot, the Australia quartet of Glenn O'Shea, Jack Bobridge, Michael Hepburn and Rohan Dennis were the last team to start and truly stepped up to the British challenge, coming out of the blocks at world record pace, breaking two minutes for the two kilometre mark and sitting just under a second faster than the GB four coming into the final kilometre. They slowed up drastically in the last two laps, however – confirming that they are more erratic than Great Britain – and ran out in 3.54.654, less than a fifth of a second slower than GB, and more than enough to suggest that a scintillating final is in prospect. It was likely that the Australians would draft in Michael Edmondson for O'Shea in the final in the opening session this evening, while GB have brought in Burke for Tennant. In China in 2008, the final where the world record fell was a one-sided affair between GB and Denmark; this world title contest, however, looks set to be close-run between two teams pushing each other to new heights.