MONTIGNY-LE-BRETONNEUX, France (AP) — The American women’s pursuit team had twice before raced for the Olympic gold medal, and it had been on the podium all three times the event had been on the program for the Summer Games.
Successful, to be sure, but also disappointing, because it had never been the top step.
On a steamy Wednesday night at the Olympic velodrome, road race champion Kristen Faulkner, time trial bronze medalist Chloe Dygert, Jennifer Valente and Lilly Williams finally took that last step up. They soared to a big early lead on New Zealand in their head-to-head showdown, then held on through a ragged finish to finally win the gold medal at the Paris Games.
“We knew we had a strong team coming in,” Faulkner said with a smile, “and I feel like the lucky one, because they have won medals before on the track and I haven’t. I just wanted to live up to their expectations.”
Did she ever. Faulkner’s relatively recent addition to the squad might have made the difference.
“It’s pretty surreal,” Williams added. “I do not think anybody expected this.”
The Americans led by more than a second a quarter of the way through the 4,000-meter race, and they stretched the gap at one point to nearly two seconds. When they began to come apart from their single-file, aerodynamic draft with about two laps to go, they had to fight to the finish to hold off Ally Wollaston, Bryony Botha, Emily Shearman and Nicole Shields.
“There’s just a lot of support for this program,” said Dygert, who has been part of the past three U.S. Olympic pursuit teams, “and we’ve been able to bring in really strong riders, and now we were finally able to pull it off.”
In the race for bronze, the British team of Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jessica Roberts pulled back more than a second from Italy over the last half of its race to land on the podium for the fourth straight Summer Games.
In the finals of the men’s pursuit, Sam Welsford, Oliver Bleddyn, Conor Leahy and Kelland O’Brien of Australia beat Britain in a close final at the Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to win gold for the first time in two decades.
“I think it is a fair way away from sinking in,” O’Brien said.
The American women’s pursuit program had been chasing gold ever since the 2012 London Games, when it finished second to Britain. It lost a rematch four years later in Rio de Janeiro, and then in Tokyo, the U.S. had to beat Canada for bronze.
The Americans came to the velodrome outside of Paris with cautious optimism, though, buoyed by a lineup that already had a pair of medals. Dygert picked herself up from a crash and rallied through the rain to capture time trial bronze, and last weekend, Faulkner attacked in the closing kilometers to win the Americans’ first Olympic road race in 40 years.
After its qualifying time pit the U.S. against Britain in the semifinals, the quartet built a nearly half-second lead on its rival by the midway point of the race, and Dygert went to the front for the final lap to bring it home.
Then it was New Zealand’s turn, and the top qualifier brushed aside the Italians in their semifinal by nearly three seconds.
In the finals, the Americans showed that they were the class of the Paris Games.
“This has been meticulously put together for over a year, year after year,” said Valente, who now will team with Williams in the Madison later in the track cycling program before defending her Olympic title in the multidiscipline omnium.
“I’ve been part of this pursuit program for a long time, with a lot of different riders,” Valente said, “and to be able to pull together a really strong ride, and have it actually pay off — it’s just a really special moment.”
In the men’s pursuit, Australia roared through qualifying and then took out Olympic champion Italy in the semifinals, setting a world record in the process. Then against Britain, the two teams were separated by less than two-tenths of a second for almost the entire distance, before Daniel Bigham, Ethan Hayter, Charlie Tanfield and Oliver Wood had a problem near the end.
The Australians were able to cruise to gold, while Britain took silver after a disappointing seventh at the Tokyo Games.
“It’s pretty crazy to call ourselves Olympic champions,” Welsford said. “We probably did not have these expectations when we started training together. To come together like we did in the last month was pretty special.”
The bronze went to the Italians of Simone Consonni, Filippo Ganna, Francesco Lamon and Jonathan Milan, who rallied in the last 1,000 meters as the Danish team of Tobias Hansen, Niklas Larsen, Carl-Frederik Bevort and Rasmus Pedersen fell apart.
“We didn’t expect the level (to be) so high in these Olympic Games,” Lamon said.
Earlier on the third day of Olympic track cycling, the men’s sprint started with qualifying through a 200-meter flying lap, where riders spend roughly two laps getting up to speed and then cover that distance as quickly as possible.
On a blazing fast, hot track where records are falling more quickly than medals are being awarded, the world record fell twice. Matthew Richardson of Australia snatched it away from reigning Olympic champion Harrie Lavreysen in 9.091 seconds, only for the Dutch rider — fresh off his team sprint gold a night earlier — to claim it back in 9.088 a few minutes later.
Lavreysen and Richardson were among the favorites to cruise into the quarterfinals Thursday night.
The women’s keirin, where six riders spend three laps paced behind a motorized bike called a derny before getting turned loose to sprint for three laps, also began with New Zealand favorite Ellesse Andrews, German stars Lea Friedrich and Emma Hinze, and British standout Emma Finucane getting through their opening heats without a problem.
The medals in the women’s keirin along with the men’s multidiscipline omnium will be decided Thursday night.
“It will be a bit the same as in other championships — fast-paced and the big guns will be there,” said Fabio van den Bossche of Belgium. “There will be many candidates for the podium.”
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