American Chloé Dygert is the hot favourite for the first elite gold medal of the UCI Cycling World Championships that kicked off on Thursday.
The first edition of the unified world championships combines title events in road, track, mountain bike, BMX, indoor cycling, trials, gran fondo and para-cycling road and track.
Dygert set the fastest time in the women’s individual pursuit qualifier, completing the 4km race 2.388 seconds quicker than second-placed Franziska Brausse of Germany. Dygert and Brausse will face off in the gold medal final on Thursday evening.
Racing for silver will be Bryony Botha (New Zealand) and Neah Evans (Great Britain). Botha was almost 1.5 seconds faster than Evans in qualifying.
Great Britain’s women’s team sprint squad stunned Germany in the qualifying round, besting the defending champion team Pauline Grabosch, Emma Hinze and Lea Friedrich by 0.395 seconds to set the fastest time. Teams from China, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada and Poland also advanced to the next round.
Great Britain’s Lauren Bell, Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane will face Poland in the next round which starts at 7:03 p.m. BST. The final round will take place after the women’s individual pursuit final.
In the elite men’s team pursuit qualifying rounds, Denmark came out on top more than two seconds quicker than New Zealand, with Italy in third 3.592 seconds adrift. Defending world champions Great Britain crashed out of the competition.
The Netherlands dominated in the men’s team sprint qualifying, with Roy van den Berg, Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland beating defending champions Australia by nearly half a second in the three-lap race.
Poland, Japan, France, Great Britain, Germany and China will also move on to the next men’s team sprint round on Friday, with finals taking place at the end of the programme on Friday.
Australia’s Leigh Hoffman, Matthew Glaetzer and Thomas Cornish will face off against Germany in round 1, the Netherlands will face China, and Great Britain will race against Poland.
The next round of the men’s team pursuit will take place on Friday with finals on Saturday. The full schedule of the UCI Track World Championships includes 11 events for elite men and women: the individual pursuit, team pursuit, individual sprint, team sprint, keirin, Madison, omnium, scratch, points and elimination races and the 1km time trial for men and 500m TT for women.
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