The third session of the track events of the Olympic Games Paris 2024, on Wednesday 7 August, was marked by the finals of the team pursuit, won by Australia - Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O’Brien - in the men’s event and the USA’s Jennifer Valente, Lily Williams, Chloe Dygert and Kristen Faulkner (gold medallist in the road race on Sunday) in the women’s event.
After they beat the world record on Tuesday in the first round, the Australian quartet got the better of Great Britain’s Ethan Hayter, Daniel Bigham, Charlie Tanfield and Ethan Vernon in the final for gold. The Italians - Simone Consonni, Filippo Ganna, Francesco Lamon and Jonathan Milan - claimed the bronze medal against Denmark.
“I don’t know about these boys, but my legs are pretty tired from the last couple of days,” O’Brien said. “Obviously it was quite tight in the end. An Olympic final is not like anything else. With the three boys next to me we just executed an absolutely phenomenal ride.”
“We hadn’t won (during) this cycle, it was about winning today,” Leahy added. “And I knew that we did everything for that. I can’t believe that, it’s incredible.”
In the afternoon, the first round of the women’s team pursuit had laid the stage for thrilling finals, with the USA (4’04’’629) and New Zealand's Ally Wollaston, Bryony Botha, Emily Shearman and Nicole Shields (4’04’’818) performing at levels extremely close to the world record set by Germany when they won gold at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (4’04’’242).
A few hours later, the USA went on to take the gold and almost beat the world record (4’04’’306).
“It’s pretty surreal,” said a delighted Williams. “I don’t know if anybody of us expected this. We all just wanted to come in and ride fast. We haven’t been in a gold medal ride since 2020 so this is really unexpected. We thought we would ride somewhere around 4’07’’ on a perfect day so this goes far beyond that.”
Dygert added: “Third time is a charm, right? We have such a strong team, we all believed, and this means a lot for us, it’s a really special moment.”
Great Britain’s Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jessica Roberts claimed the bronze medal ahead of Italy.
The velodrome also hosted the first battles of the men’s sprint and the women’s keirin on Wednesday.
In the men’s sprint qualifying, the 200m flying start world record was broken twice: first by Australian Matthew Richardson, who clocked 9.091 seconds, before Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen lowered it again, to 9.088 seconds.
Colombia’s Martha Bayona (silver medallist in the women’s keirin at the UCI World Championships in 2017 and 2023) was among the most notable riders eliminated early in the competition.
Results available here