Team GB’s sprinters won a hard-fought silver medal at the Olympic Velodrome, but they couldn’t stop Harrie Lavreysen from leading the Netherlands to the men’s team sprint title in a world record time.
In a one-sided final, Great Britain’s sprint quartet of Jack Carlin, Hamish Turnbull, and Ed Lowe were gallant but powerless against Lavreysen and compatriots Jeffrey Hoogland and Roy van den Berg, who led practically from the first bend.
Carlin, Turnbull, and Lowe could only watch as Lavreysen and his two partners raised their arms in excitement after breaking the world record earlier in the tournament.
“I think we’ve executed three really solid races there and can be proud of that as a team,” Carlin told the crowd. “We knew that we would be up against it coming into it, but we stuck to our process and stuck to what we wanted from each race.”
Carlin was the first to recognize the magnitude of Team GB’s accomplishment against the world’s top sprint team. “As a team, we came and delivered,” he said, adding that silver was “probably the best we could have done on the day.”.
“Two boys came in with no experience at this level,” Carlin said of his two colleagues. “They’ve really stepped up, and I’m proud of them.”
Lowe elaborated: “A silver medal was something I didn’t think was possible going into this, so second place, I’ll definitely take that to the Dutch.”
Turnbull continued, “We didn’t expect to battle for gold. We were chasing the bronze medal, so getting into the gold final relieved all of our worry.
“We could really enjoy it, soak up the crowd, and show everyone what we could do without really any pressure on our backs.”
However, taking silver did not tell the full story. Carlin’s appearance in Paris had been jeopardised by injury. The 27-year-old injured his ankle in April when one of his bike’s cranks snapped, and now faces a race against time to get fit enough for Paris.
Carlin, who stated that he was feeling “very positive” at the time, had recently won a silver medal in the Nations Cup team sprint.
The ankle injury, which occurred just three months before the Paris Games, left him reeling. “I didn’t really have time to even think about it,” he told me. “Straight away, I had a rehab plan, and I just got stuck into that.”
The world’s fastest velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines saw record-breaking sprinting performances, with the Dutch taking the lead.
Britain raced admirably throughout the sprints, defeating Germany in the first round, and Carlin’s fast last lap propelled them to the gold medal race.
However, when the Dutch, under the leadership of Lavreysen, defeated Canada with a time of 41.191, the magnitude of their task became apparent.
Carlin, who won silver and bronze medals in Tokyo, had previously stood on the Olympic Velodrome podium in 2016, winning silver in the team sprint at the European Championships alongside Ryan Owens and Joseph Truman.
However, he has already admitted that Lavreysen, who won gold medals in the individual and team sprints at the Tokyo Olympics and holds several world titles, may be the best track sprinter of all time.
In the women’s team pursuit qualifiers, New Zealand, Italy, and Australia led the way with times of 4 minutes, 04.679 seconds.
Two days after winning gold in the women’s road race, Kristen Faulkner and her American colleagues, Chloé Dygert, Lily Williams, and Jennifer Valente, set the second-fastest time to date.
Team GB’s quartet of Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris, and Jessica Roberts got off to a faster start than anyone else but subsequently slipped behind New Zealand to finish third in the best qualifier, which was a solid effort considering Katie Archibald was absent.
The men’s pursuit team was moved for their first-round match against Denmark, with Charlie Tanfield replacing Dan Bigham, along with Ethan Hayter, Ollie Wood, and Ethan Vernon, who stated that he collapsed during training last Saturday.
With the victors automatically qualifying for the gold medal race, the British quartet took the lead at the start but fell behind the Danes by halfway. In the last km, Team GB closed the distance and won in 3:42.151, just missing the world record of 3:42.032.
Australia’s four were even quicker, putting defending Olympic champions Italy on the ropes from the start in their first-round heat and setting a new world best of 3:40.730.
The final on Wednesday will pit Team GB against the Australians. It appears that winning the gold medal will require yet another world record time.