Milestone medal the perfect way to signal Team GB’s turnaround in flagship cycling pursuit

The men took silver and the women took bronze as the team pursuits yielded another two medals

(AFP via Getty Images)

For the second Olympics running, Great Britain’s men’s team pursuit finished a race in a less than optimum position.

But where Charlie Tanfield’s crash in Tokyo three years ago was a symbol of the struggles in what most see as British Cycling’s flagship event, this was a very different scenario.

When Ethan Hayter blew up with 300 metres to go in this Olympic final to end any hopes of overhauling to Australia to take gold, there was a tinge of disappointment.

But the team of Hayter, Tanfield, Ethan Vernon and Dan Bigham had done everything within their power and came desperately close to the world record holders.

Hayter is the real engine of the team pursuit, asked to carry the load above and beyond. It is a tactic that has taken Team GB to a world title – on this very track in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines two years ago.

On this occasion though, Hayter literally went above and beyond, slipping off his saddle with a lap and a half remaining and two tenths of a second still to make up.

He said: “It was quite a long way for me to go, nearly five laps at the end. I had the race in my hands a bit, it was what we wanted. I literally tied up, I went pretty deep, my arms went weak and I fell off.

“I don’t know how I didn’t crash. We really took it to them, we maybe could have paced it a little bit better but we definitely left it all out on the line, that’s the deepest I’ve gone in a while. It’s a bit embarrassing but we gave it everything and a silver medal after the last few years with this lot is really nice.”

GB men’s pursuit team (AFP via Getty Images)

Those last few years include a particularly tough day in Izu in 2021. During a dramatic session, Ed Clancy announced his retirement from the sport, forcing Tanfield to come in at short notice.

Up against a formidable Danish team, Britain had lost one rider before Tanfield lost contact with his teammates. He ended up colliding with the leading Danish rider as Great Britain were lapped – an accident that forced him to consider his future in the sport.

Three years on, this is some turnaround, for Tanfield and the team in general.

He said: “Ethan did an amazing ride and there’s no way around it, he had a lot of the load there. He can still be proud of what he has done tonight, he did an unbelievable amount of turns on the front and that’s a really special performance in itself. He can’t be down about that. We had to put it on the line and it’s one of those things.

“Tokyo was a low point in my career and it was really difficult for me to carry on in the sport after that. I didn’t know what I was going to do afterwards.

“I’m really glad I tried and kept on going. It has been a really long journey to even make it back into the squad again. These guys won World Champs and I wasn’t there. It has been a battle and I’m glad I could even make the start line, let alone do the race. A silver medal, for me, is great.”

That silver was a landmark medal for Team GB, the 1000th won across summer and winter Games since the very first Olympics in Athens in 1896.

And it was followed very soon after by medal 1001 – as Team GB’s women’s team pursuit took bronze.

GB women’s pursuit team (AFP via Getty Images)

For a long time, they looked as though they were not going to be able to match opponents Italy, but a ferocious final kilometre turned a second deficit into victory by nearly two seconds for Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jess Roberts.

Considering they lost double Olympic champion Katie Archibald to injury – breaking two bones in her leg as well tearing ligaments – just over a month out from the Games, that was a remarkable achievement.

And for Knight, it had even greater resonance.

Knight, one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, explained: “Six weeks ago when I arrived back at my house and Katie wasn’t there and she was in A&E, it really felt like the Olympic dream had gone down the drain a little bit.

“It took me a week to refocus, selection was up in the air. We didn’t know who the team was going to be, who was going to be riding, what we were going to do. It was a nervous week while we waited for reselection. We had to refocus and come up with a new strategy and we have nailed it.

“When you come from a nation of so many greats, it’s assumed they are the reason you win anything. We’ve got a national record, we are the four fastest team pursuiters in the nation and that is pretty cool.”

Bronze for the women’s pursuit team (AFP via Getty Images)

Elsewhere, both Hamish Turnbull and Jack Carlin booked their place in the quarter-finals of the men’s individual sprint by the slimmest of margins, requiring photo finishes to see off Israel’s Mikhail Yakovlev and Nicholas Paul of Trinidad and Tobago respectively.

Earlier in the day, Emma Finucane and Katy Marchant, fresh from Monday’s team sprint gold, both came through the first round of the women’s keirin.

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