Great Britain win gold
Great Britain's Katy Marchant, Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell kicked off the Olympic Games track cycling events with the first gold medal in the women's Team Sprint on Monday.
It was a historic moment for women's cycling as this year marks the first time that the women race the same distance as the men in every track event.
Great Britain set a new world record of 45.186 in defeating New Zealand's Rebecca Petch, Shaane Fulton and Ellesse Andrews, a full 0.296 seconds quicker than China's record that stood before the day.
New Zealand started off quickly with a blistering opening lap, but Capewell carried the momentum set by Marchant and turned a 0.133-second deficit around.
Then, Finucane sealed the deal with a smoothly delivered final lap, besting the Kiwis by 0.473 seconds.
Defending Olympic champions Germany, who won the two-rider, 500-metre Tokyo Team Sprint were not as dominant in the new three-rider format.
However, Lea Friedrich, Pauline Grabosch, and Emma Hinze came around in the bronze medal final to beat the Netherlands' Kyra Lamberink, Hetty van de Wouw, Steffie van der Peet, setting a time of 45.4.
The British trio were able to celebrate in front of a sizeable partisan crowd, with most of Finucane's family travelling to Paris from Wales.
"I'm honestly so proud," Finucane said. "We nailed that ride. I believed in us that we could do it but to execute it like that… I've never celebrated like that in my life. It's so so special and we've worked so hard, so to everyone back home, I just want to say a huge thank you. The support has been unreal."
Marchant, the individual sprint bronze medalist in Rio, was thrilled to overcome her disastrous Tokyo Olympics, where she crashed out of the keirin and was eliminated in the early sprint rounds, and start off the Paris track events with Great Britain's first gold medal in track cycling of the Games.
"It doesn't get much better than that," Marchant said. "It means everything. It just shows the hard work we've put in. I always believed there was reward for hard work, we've just come together as a team and put so much work into learning how to deliver on the day and we were able to do that today."
Finucane added that each of the trio have individual events to race as well, and while she is taking each race as it comes, "I just want to take this in and then crack on with the rest of the week.
"But this gives us a lot of confidence for the rest of the week."
New Zealand's Shaane Fulton knew the team came into the competition as underdogs, having been fifth at Worlds last year, and a silver medal and a brief world record was confirmation of the team's hard work.
"I feel like these three rides today were our best ever. I feel like that was just so amazing for us as a team. People were weren't watching us as much and we were the underdogs, so I think we just used that and and bought absolutely our A-game."
Grabosch, the newcomer to the German team who joined Tokyo medalists Friedrich and Hinze, said the team never lost the focus on going as fast as they could together.
"We had the privilege to have three strong women leading into the new format of the team sprint. So everybody worked hard, everybody [she said, pointing to the British team], as we can see, has three very strong girls at the line. We put the fastest three girls together on the line today."
Great Britain set another world record in First Round
The women's Team Sprint resumed for the first round with four heats at the velodrome, where a new world record was set three more times.
The Netherlands opened the qualification round in heat 1, beating China with a time of 45.798.
It was during heat 2 that Germany set another new world record in their race against Mexico, with a time of 45.377. New Zealand then came through with another world record during heat 3 against Poland with a time of 45.348.
The world record continued to tumble as Great Britain set the new fastest record of 45.338, beating Canada in heat 4.
The British team of Sophie Capewell, Emma Finucane and Katy Marchant had already set a new world record in the event in the qualifications earlier in the day.
In the Finals, Great Britain qualified for the gold medal round against New Zealand, while Germany qualified for the bronze-medal round against the Netherlands.
World record for Great Britain in Qualification
Great Britain set a new World and Olympic record of 45.472 seconds in the women's team sprint during the qualifying round at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome outside Paris.
In the first Olympic race with three riders and 750 metres of flat-out sprinting for the women, Katy Marchant hit out hard on her first lap, but Sophie Capwell appeared to slip slightly out of turn one, but she recovered quickly. With an extra shot of adrenaline, she closed the gap to the early leaders New Zealand and launched Emma Finucane, who put in a blistering final lap to get past the Kiwis.
New Zealand started as the second team and broke the Olympic record at 45.593 seconds.
The British team will face last-placed qualifiers Canada in the first round, while New Zealand will go up against Poland, who came seventh.
Germany, third, will go head to head with Mexico while the Netherlands will face China, who had to overcome a false start and finished a disappointing fifth.
The quickest two times in the first round will determine who races for the gold medal.
