IZU (Reuters) – Germany’s women fired the opening salvo in the battle for team pursuit gold with a massive world record in qualifying as the Olympic track cycling programme began on Monday.
The German quartet of Franziska Brausse, Lisa Brennauer, Lisa Klein and Mieke Kroeger completed 16 laps of the Izu track in 4:07.307 to smash by nearly three seconds the record set by Britain when they won gold at the Rio Olympics.
Britain, whose previous mark had been 4:10.236, were the last team to go and looked like claiming it back but faded to finish second quickest on 4:09.022.
The United States were third, also breaking the old world record in 4:10.118, with Italy fourth quickest.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
