Great Britain narrowly missed out on a medal in the team time trial mixed relay at the UCI Cycling World Championships as the loss of Ben Turner told on the streets of Glasgow.
Turner was unable to take the start through illness after abandoning Sunday’s road race early, with youngster Josh Charlton drafted in as a replacement.
With only 12 seconds separating Britain in fourth from third-placed Germany, it was perhaps decisive for a podium spot on this technical circuit.
Charlton joined Dan Bigham and Ethan Vernon to ride the first lap before Pfeiffer Georgi, Anna Shackley and Elynor Backstedt took on the second, with Shackley and Georgi getting a good look at the testing Glasgow streets ahead of this coming Sunday’s road race.
The Swiss sextet successfully defended their title, their combined time of 54 minutes 16.20 seconds edging out France by just seven seconds over the 40.3km distance.
“It’s another one of those ‘what if’ moments,” said Bigham, who was narrowly beaten into second in the individual pursuit on the track on Sunday night.
“Losing Ben Turner was not the best thing, he’s a really good rider, incredibly talented and very good at going around corners which was probably the primary thing today.
“Ten seconds in the grand scheme of things isn’t a huge amount but reflecting back on the prep we’ve been able to do and what we weren’t able to do, I think we can be very content with the performance we did.”
This event, first seen at the 2019 world championships in Harrogate, sees three male riders complete one lap, with the women’s team then starting their own lap as soon as they cross the finish line.
“I think for all of us it was our first mixed relay,” Georgi said of Britain’s young line-up on the women’s side.
“It’s a new experience. You don’t know your start time. You’re sat on the start line waiting for the light to go green and sometimes the orange doesn’t look so orange.
“It would have been nice to get on the podium but we got everything out so I think we can be satisfied.”
