With just eight months to go until the London 2012 Olympic Games, Germany’s team sprint squad last night beat the world record that Great Britain had set at Beijing three years ago.
The new world record time of 42.914 was set in Cali, Colombia, which is hosting the second round of this season’s UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics series. The average speed for the three laps of the velodrome was 62.916kph.
The time is 36 thousands of a second inside the previous world best time, set by Hoy, Jamie Staff and Jason Kenny in qualification at Beijing on their way to beating France in the final.
Germany, represented by the same trio of riders that set the new benchmark yesterday – René Enders, Maximilian Levy and Stefan Nimke – took bronze at those Games.
Earlier this year, they lost to France in the world championships at Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, with Great Britain taking bronze.
Last night’s time was set during qualification, with the trio beating another three German riders, representing Team Erdgas 2012, in the final.
World champions France, missing Grégory Baugé and Kevin Sireau, finished fourth, with Venezuela beating them to take bronze.
Britain’s sole representatives at Cali, the women’s pursuit squad of Wendy Houveaghel, Sarah Storey and Laura Trott, took gold yesterday evening, beating New Zealand in the final in a time of 3:31:835.
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Seems we're both wrong. For the World Cup a velodrome must be between 133 and 500m. For the Olympics and the World Championships the track should be 250m, but the UCI may allow an existing velodrome of a different length to be used.
I don't know about the World Cup, but Olympic velodromes can be a variety of lengths:
The track is measured along a line 20 cm up from the bottom. Olympic standard velodromes may only measure between 250 m and 400 m, and the length must be such that a whole or half number of laps give a distance of 1 km.
I am not surprised that the Germans can go faster in Cali, given the altitude of around 1,000m versus Beijing (43m) where the previous record was set for the team sprint.
Considering this, I don't see it as a real issue at this stage of the calendar as there is plenty of time to peak for the Olympics and to beat everyone when it matters
Pedantic I know, but isn't the Team Sprint raced over 3 laps of a velodrome regardless of how long or short it is, as opposed to other events (like the Team Pursuit) which are raced over a set distance? As a result there is no world record, but instead a "world's best" which amounts to the same thing.
I don't know. The Cali velodrome is a standard 250 m track, like all the UCI world cup venues.