Wednesday, August 7, 2024 at 6:44 PM
Australia became Olympic champions in the team pursuit for the third time in their history. After 1984 and 2004, the Australians were now the best at the Paris Games. Great Britain were defeated in the final after a thrilling battle. The Italian team with Filippo Ganna, winners in Tokyo, now had to settle for the bronze medal.
Familiar faces in the Australian squad are Kelland O’Brien, a pro at Jaico Al Ula, and Sam Welsford, one of the fast men at Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. Three years ago they were also part of the team that finished third in Tokyo. For Oliver Bledden and Conor Leahy, it was their first Games appearance. The Australian quartet performed smoothly and improved the Italians’ world record in Tokyo from 3:42.032 minutes to 3:40.730 minutes in the series.
This made Australia favourites for the final, where they met Great Britain. But the Brits should not be underestimated, as this song has already won fourteen Olympic medals. We also saw some familiar faces among the Brits, such as Ethan Hayter from INEOS Grenadiers, sprinter Ethan Vernon from Israel-Premier Tech, and Daniel Bigham, who in addition to being a track specialist is also the performance engineer for INEOS Grenadiers. It was recently announced that he will soon be leaving the WorldTeam.
Australia and Great Britain did little to match each other in the final. The Australians briefly rode to the timetable that had given them the world record in the series, but it soon became clear that Tuesday’s best time had not been achieved. Eventually, the ball rolled the Australians’ way and when Ethan Hayter nearly lost control of his bike due to exhaustion, the battle was decided. Australia trailed Italy on the honours list. The team, led by Filippo Ganna, beat Denmark in the battle for the bronze medal.
