Team GB’s sprinters earned a hard-fought silver medal in the Olympic Velodrome, but could not stop Harrie Lavreysen from leading the Netherlands to the men’s team sprint title, achieving a world-record time.
In a decisive final, Great Britain’s sprint trio of Jack Carlin, Hamish Turnbull, and Ed Lowe put in a valiant effort but were outmatched as Lavreysen, along with teammates Jeffrey Hoogland and Roy van den Berg, took the lead right from the first bend.
The Dutch team, who had already set a world record earlier in the competition, raced to a new world record of 40.949 seconds, while Carlin, Turnbull, and Lowe could only watch as Lavreysen and his teammates celebrated their victory.
“We had a choice,” said Team GB’s sprint coach, Jason Kenny, regarding the final. “We could put on massive gears and go all out, hoping for the best, but we believed the gears we were on were the fastest. So we decided to focus on our ride and give it our all.”
“Clearly, the Dutch are faster, but if they falter, we need to be ready to capitalize. They didn’t, they executed flawlessly, and they’re currently in a league of their own.”
Carlin was the first to acknowledge the magnitude of Team GB’s accomplishment against the world’s top sprint team.
“As a team, we came and delivered,” he stated, attributing silver as “probably the best we could have done today.”
Carlin remarked, “That Dutch team is in a league of their own. We’ve put in three solid races and can be proud of our effort as a team. We anticipated a tough challenge, but we adhered to our process and our race targets.”
“Two of our teammates entered without much prior experience at this level,” Carlin mentioned. “They really stepped up, and I’m proud of them.”
Turnbull added, “We weren’t expecting to compete for gold. Our goal was really to chase bronze, so reaching the gold final was a relief.”
However, securing silver didn’t fully capture the story. Carlin’s participation was in jeopardy due to an injury sustained in April, when he broke his ankle after one of his bike’s cranks snapped, leading him to a rush against time to reach peak fitness for the games.
After his injury occurred just three months before the Paris Games, he was left stunned. “I didn’t have time to think about it,” he reflected. “I immediately had a rehabilitation plan and got to work.”
Records continued to fall under the sweltering conditions of the world’s widest velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, but this time it was the Dutch who set the pace in sprinting. Britain maintained a high standard throughout the sprints, defeating Germany in the first round, with Carlin’s impressive last lap propelling them into the gold medal race. However, the daunting task was evident as the Dutch, led by Lavreysen, set the world record for the first time with a time of 41.191.
Carlin, who previously won silver and bronze in Tokyo, has recognized Lavreysen, gold medalist in both the individual and team sprint events in Tokyo, as potentially the greatest track sprinter in history.
In the women’s team pursuit qualifiers, New Zealand – aiming for yet another world record with a time of 4:04.679 – alongside Italy and Australia set impressive results. Just 48 hours post-winning gold in the women’s road race, Kristen Faulkner, with USA teammates Chloé Dygert, Lily Williams, and Jennifer Valente, clocked the second-fastest time.
Team GB’s group of Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris, and Jessica Roberts finished third in qualifications, chasing New Zealand’s rapid pace, which was a commendable effort in Katie Archibald’s absence. Eight teams will advance to the finals on Wednesday.
The men’s pursuit team underwent a lineup change for their first-round matchup against Denmark, with Charlie Tanfield joining Ethan Hayter, Ollie Wood, and Ethan Vernon in place of Dan Bigham, who revealed he had crashed during training last Saturday.
With the victors moving on to race for gold, the British quartet initially took the lead but fell behind the Danes midway. Yet, in the final kilometer, Team GB closed the gap and claimed victory with a time of 3:42.151, just shy of the world record set at 3:42.032.
Australia’s team was even faster, taking on reigning Olympic champions Italy from the start in their first-round heat, setting a new world record of 3:40.730. In the final on Wednesday, Team GB will face the Australians in the race for gold, with the expectation that a new world record may be necessary to claim the medal.
