European Track Championships - Britain dominate Friday morning sesson

Britain got the first European Championships off to the best possible start putting in the fastest times in three of the four morning qualifying sessions on Friday 5th November in Pruszkow, Poland.

Obviously a little too early for some the seats wear nearly empty for the morning session which started at 10am, but that didn’t dampen the excitement for the events that lay ahead.

Setting the Standard
It was the Olympic champions who set the standard in the team pursuit to open the three day event with a time of 4min 01.953 secs. Ed Clancy was the only member of the 2008 team who won the gold in Beijing. Bradley Wiggins chose not to race in this event, after it was taken from the schedule for London 2012, to focus on his own Olympic events.

Clancy was joined by, 2000 Olympic Kilo medallist, Jason Queally, Steven Burke and Andrew Tennant as the British team beat their nearest challengers the Russians by almost two seconds. Ivan Kovalev, Evgeny Kovalev, Alexei Markov and Alexander Serov came home in 4:03.69. For Queally at the age of 40 it was the first time he has competed in the event at an international level.

Women Shine Bright
The women weren’t to be upstaged by the men as they stamped there authority in the 3km pursuit beating Lithuania by over three seconds, who they will race for the gold medal. Individual pursuit silver medallist Wendy Houvenaghel took to the boards with up and coming stars Laura Trott and Katie Colclough.

Multiple world champion Victoria Pendleton kick started her weekend with Jessica Varnish in the women’s sprint. They will compete against the French pair of Sandie Clair and Clara Sanchez for the gold medal. Pendleton, who has two world championship golds in the event, certainly looks like she could be taking home a good medal haul over the next three days.

A full swoop of the qualifying events wasn’t to be as a bad changeover meant the British team in the men’s sprint would be riding for bronze and not gold. The team of Sir Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny and Matt Crampton were edged out by the French in to the top spot fight in a disappointing race for the Olympic championships. However, Hoy and Kenny will be the favourites for the men’s individual sprint. Hoy won gold in Beijing but was recently beaten by the young pretender to his throne earlier on in the year.

World champions Germany were the fastest in qualifying with a time of 43.968, but they didn’t dominate as much as they would have liked only two tenths ahead of France.