PARIS, France — The U.S. women's pursuit team of road race Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner, Chloe Dygert, Jennifer Valente and Lilly Williams held on through a ragged finish to beat New Zealand in the race for gold at the Paris Games on Wednesday night.
The Americans led by more than a second a quarter of the way through the 4,000-meter race and stretched the lead at one point to nearly two seconds. But they began to come apart from their single-file, aerodynamic draft with about two laps to go, and they had to hang on to the finish to give their nation its first gold in the event after 12 years of close calls.
Ally Wollaston, Bryony Botha, Emily Shearman and Nicole Shields were left with the silver medal for New Zealand.
In the race for bronze, the British team of Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jessica Roberts pulled back more than a second from Italy over the last half of its race to land on the podium for the fourth straight Summer Games.
In the men's pursuit, Sam Welsford, Oliver Bleddyn, Conor Leahy and Kelland O'Brien of Australia beat Britain in a close final at the Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to win the gold medal for the first time in two decades.
The American women’s pursuit program similarly has been chasing gold ever since the 2012 London Games, when it finished second to Britain. It lost a rematch four years later in Rio de Janeiro, and then in Tokyo, the U.S. had to beat Canada for bronze.
It came to the velodrome outside of Paris with cautious optimism, though, buoyed by a lineup that already had a pair of medals. Dygert picked herself up from a crash and rallied through the rain to capture bronze in the time trial, and last weekend, Faulkner attacked in the closing kilometers to win the Americans’ first Olympic road race in 40 years.
After its qualifying time pit the U.S. against Britain in the semifinals, the quartet built a nearly half-second lead on its rival by the midway point of the 4,000-meter race, and Dygert went to the front for the final lap to bring it home.
Then it was New Zealand’s turn, and the top qualifier brushed aside the Italians in their semifinal by nearly three seconds.
The men’s pursuit podium was destined for a shakeup after Australia roared through qualifying, then not only defeated Olympic champ Italy in their head-to-head match but snatched away its world record, finishing in 3:40.730 to make the finals.
Its opponent was familiar: Britain. Its streak of three straight Olympic gold medals ended with a seventh-place letdown at the Tokyo Games, but the British had topped the world champions from Denmark to return to the gold-medal race.
The two teams were separated by less than two-tenths of a second for almost their entire distance, and the Aussies crossed the line in 3:42.067. The British squad of Daniel Bigham, Ethan Hayter, Charlie Tanfield and Oliver Wood had a problem near the end that cost it a couple of seconds, leaving it with the silver medal.
The bronze went to the Italians of Simone Consonni, Filippo Ganna, Francesco Lamon and Jonathan Milan, who rallied in the last 1,000 meters as the Danish team of Tobias Hansen, Niklas Larsen, Carl-Frederik Bevort and Rasmus Pedersen fell apart.
“We didn’t expect the level (to be) so high in these Olympic Games,” Lamon said. “We worked in Italy very, very hard and very, very, well, with very good times, but when we arrived here it was not good enough for the gold.”
Earlier on the third day of Olympic track cycling, the men’s sprint started with qualifying through a 200-meter flying lap, where riders spend roughly two laps getting up to speed and then cover that distance as quickly as possible.
On a blazing fast, hot track where records are falling more quickly than medals are being awarded, the world record fell twice. Matthew Richardson of Australia snatched it away from reigning Olympic champion Harrie Lavreysen in 9.091 seconds, only for the Dutch rider — fresh off his team sprint gold a night earlier — to claim it back in 9.088 a few minutes later.
The women’s keirin, where six riders spend three laps paced behind a motorized bike called a derny before getting turned loose to sprint for three laps, also began with New Zealand favorite Ellesse Andrews, German stars Lea Friedrich and Emma Hinze, and British standout Emma Finucane getting through their opening heats without a problem.
The medals in the women’s keirin along with the men’s multidiscipline omnium will be decided Thursday night.
“It will be a bit the same as in other championships — fast-paced and the big guns will be there,” said Fabio van den Bossche of Belgium, pointing to Hayter, Aaron Gate of New Zealand and Olympic bronze medalist Elia Viviani of Italy as omnium favorites. “There will be many candidates for the podium.”