Cycling Olympic Update: Great Britain Sets World Record

Great Britain's women won Olympic gold in the team pursuit in world-record time on Saturday evening as Becky James added a silver medal in the keirin. Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell Shand, Elinor Barker and Katie Archibald comfortably defeated the United States in 4min 10.236sec to retain the title they won in London four years ago.


Trott is the first British woman to win three Olympic gold medals and will become the country's undisputed greatest female Olympian ever if she can claim a fourth in the omnium on Monday and Tuesday. Rowsell Shand now has two gold medals, having also been part of the triumphant pursuit team at London 2012, while Barker and Archibald win their first.


Britain booked their place in the final by breaking the world record that the United States had set just minutes before by 0.130 seconds, setting up a final that had the potential to eclipse the dramatic men's gold-medal race of 24 hours earlier.


The American quartet of Sarah Hammer, Kelly Catlin, Chloe Dygert and Jennifer Valente made a flying start and were 0.394 seconds up after just 500m of the 4km distance, but then Britain turned on the turbos and were just 0.096 seconds down after 1km and 0.931 seconds ahead at the halfway mark. 


When the Americans lost one rider and drifted to 1.4 seconds down with 1km to go, the British squad had all but wrapped up gold and attention turned to whether they could break the world record for the third time at these Games, which they did by a huge 1.9 seconds. While the quartet celebrated, James took to the track in the keirin final after winning her first-round heat and