? Laura Trott, Dani King and Jo Rowsell beat Australia in final
? World record lowered by Australia and GB in qualifying
As the evening session of the Track World Championships got under way in Melbourne, Great Britain lifted their gold medal tally for the week to three and pulverised the world record twice in the women's team pursuit, which is turning into the team's most dependable chance of a gold medal in London this August. In a final of the highest quality, Laura Trott, Dani King and Jo Rowsell fought back against Australia in the final kilometre to win in a time of 3min 15.720sec, having taken almost two and a half seconds off the record they set in London in February.
Australia's trio of Annette Edmondson, Melissa Hoskins and Josephine Tomic had already broken the world record themselves earlier in qualifying ? before GB reduced it in their turn ? and started at breakneck pace, leading the Britons by over a second at half distance. Trott, King and Rowsell showed the same discipline they had displayed in qualifying and produced a classic fightback, reducing the lead lap by lap before moving ahead of their rivals with a lap and a half remaining. By the finish they had extended their lead to 1.23sec.
Great Britain's record in this event has been a proud one since it first appeared on the world championship schedule at Manchester in 2008, when Rowsell, Rebecca Romero and Wendy Houvenaghel took gold. In this Olympiad they have taken world titles in 2009 and 2011 and silver in 2010, and it will be a major shock if they do not win a gold medal in London, where they will start as favourites.
This is largely down to the emergence of sparkling young talent such as Trott and King in 2010-11 alongside more experienced campaigners such as Houvenaghel and Rowsell ? who now has three world titles to her name ? but also to some inspired management from their trainer, Paul Manning, a mainstay of the men's squad through three medal-winning Olympic campaigns, who took over less than two years ago.
This season Manning has whittled the squad down from seven to its current four, which entailed taking the tough decision to drop the 2008 individual pursuit Olympic champion Rebecca Romero, and critically has kept them on their toes to maintain momentum in a sport that is evolving at breakneck pace year by year. While the discipline remains the province of the English-speaking nations ? Wednesday night's finals were intra-Commonwealth affairs, Canada against New Zealand and Great Britain v Australia ? the intense competition means times are descending at such a rate that there is no room for complacency. To make the point, both Canada and New Zealand recorded 3:19 rides in the bronze medal ride-off.
Two years ago, when Great Britain took silver to Australia in Copenhagen, the world record stood at close to 3:22; it is now nudging down towards 3:14. A new standard was set at the London World Cup when GB dropped the record to 3:18.148, and here we saw a whole new leap forward in the qualifying session as Australia slashed that time with 3:17.053, before Trott, King and Rowsell destroyed that 10 minutes later by recording 3:16.850. Three hours was all the life that record enjoyed, such is the rate at which this discipline is moving.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/apr/05/gb-womens-pursuit-world-record
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