Crash dents team pursuit medals hopes on opening day of track cycling

Sam Welsford and the Australian men’s team pursuit squad had their dreams of gold dented by a crash just over a kilometre in to the race.

Welsford and Leigh Howard, Kelland O’Brien, and Alex Porter were looking good, when the handlebars on Porter’s bike snapped off forcing him to the ground. Australia quickly called for a restart, with the commissaires allowing it for a mechanical in the qualifying round regardless of the distance ridden.

Less than an hour later the Australian quartet were back on the track and stopped the clocks in 3mins 48.44secs to finish fifth. Narrowily missing the top four and a spot in the final two heats of round one, where the winners progress to the gold medal ride.

While unable to improve on the silver medal from London 2020 and Rio 2016, the team will now turn their attention to their round one ride against Switzerland in heat two on Tuesday. Welsford and the Australian team will need to be one of the two fastest teams outside the winners of heat three and four to ride off for bronze.

“Obviously there was a mechanical failure, we’re not too sure what exactly happened, there was obviously something wrong with the bars,” AusCycling High Performance Director Simon Jones said.

“But to be honest, when you land on your face at 65km/h and you’ve got half-an-hour to do that again, it’s absolutely amazing.

“Talk about Australian fighting spirit to get up, I’m almost speechless to be honest.

“When you go again after making a big effort like that, the team pursuit is pretty explosive and it doesn’t tend to be good but they did an amazing time there, it’s really incredible.”