Great Britain settled for a silver medal in the men’s team pursuit final at the Paris Olympics, after Ethan Hayter slipped from his saddle and rode on the top tube of his bike in the dying moments.
Australia, who were the favourites for the win going into the event, narrowly missed their own world record, set 24 hours previously in the first round, but still did enough to edge ahead of GB into first place and take gold.
The silver marked a momentous 1,000th Olympic medal for Team GB.
The Australians' time of 3:42.067 was enough to secure the win, but they were pushed all the way by the British quartet of Dan Bigham, Charlie Tanfield, Ethan Vernon and Ethan Hayter.
After missing Tuesday's first round following a training crash, Bigham returned to the GB line-up, replacing Ollie Wood, with Tanfield keeping his place in the four.
The nail-biting final saw both teams bounce the lead back and forth between them as the race progressed.
Eventually it was Australia that pushed in front, leading by just two tenths of a second when Hayter slip from his saddle with one bend to go. Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy, Kelland O'Brien and Oliver Bleddyn delivered their country's first gold in the event since 2004, when GB also finished runners-up.
Speaking afterwards, GB's Hayter said his team could be "proud" after securing silver.
"We were so close," the 25-year-old said. "I gave too much. My whole body went weak and I couldn’t hold myself up on the bike anymore. I don’t know how I stayed up.
"Sorry to these guys, I think we gave everything. We're super-happy to win a silver, but it was really there for the taking for us today. We knew that, we went out to get it and just came short in the end. It's a shame."
Tanfield explained that the British team tried "something a little different" with their strategy in the final. "It was putting it on the line a bit," he said. "Ethan [Hayter] had an extra lap than what was planned for. We went out very hot and got the most out of it that we could on the day.
"We were just unlucky at the end there with Ethan. It’s a silver medal at the Olympic Games, though. If someone had said that to me before the Games I would have still been like, 'Wow, that’s amazing.'"
Meanwhile after winning the event at the Tokyo games three years ago, Italy won their bronze medal clash against Denmark to ensure they would complete the podium.
Denmark appeared to capitulate after a rapid start, with Rasmus Lund Pedersen eventually riding his remaining two teammates off his wheel. The Italians' time of 3:44.197 was enough to land the bronze medal.
Bronze for GB women in team pursuit
Great Britain put in a sensational ride to take the bronze medal in their clash with Italy, setting a time of 4:06.382 to secure a spot on the podium in the women’s team pursuit final.
The Italians appeared to fade after a huge effort in the first phase of the race which had narrowly pushed them ahead by 1.2 seconds. In the end, a powerful ride from the Great Britain team, led by Josie Knight, meant that they turned it around and took the medal.
Winning bronze marked a successful Olympic debut for the duo of first timers at the Games, Anna Morris and Jess Roberts. The team were racing without Katie Archibald, a two-time Olympic champion, who fractured her leg in a freak accident just before the Games.
Despite the disrupted build-up and missing Archibald, the GB team qualified with ease on Tuesday, before then setting a national record of 4:04.908 in the first round. It was still not enough to secure a spot in the battle for gold later on in the evening.
Bronze for the GB women's quartet marked a fourth medal in just three days for the squad inside the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome. GB took gold in the women’s team sprint final earlier this week before the men then followed that up with silver on Tuesday.
In the final medal race of the evening, the USA earned team pursuit gold with a time of 4:04.306 ahead of New Zealand. Winning on the track marked the second gold medal in just a matter of days for Kristen Faulkner, after she triumphed in the women’s road race on Sunday.
Elsewhere Jack Carlin and Hamish Turnbull both qualified for Thursday's sprint quarter finals after winning their respective quarter final match-ups on Wednesday. Turnbull saw off Israel’s Mikhail Yakovlev before a photo finish declared Jack Carlin the winner in his clash with Trinidad and Tobago’s Nicholas Paul.
