Altitude helps world records tumble in the team sprint and women's team pursuit

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World records tumbled and the major nations dominated the opening day of racing at the season's second track World Cup at Aguascalientes, taking advantage of the altitude of the Mexican velodrome to set super-fast times in the team pursuit and team sprint events.

Germany won both the men’s and the women’s team sprint events, confirming their current dominance in the sprinter disciplines. Great Britain’s Kian Emadi, Philip Hindes and Jason Kenny set a new world record in qualifying with a time of 42.339 but the German trio of Rene Enders, Robert Forstemann and Joachim Eilers went below 42 seconds to set a new world record time of 41.871.

Great Britain brought in Matt Crampton but couldn’t match Germany in the final, who won in a time of 42.117.

The German women matched their compatriots by also smashing the world record thanks to a great ride at altitude. Kristina Vogel and Miriam Welte set a new best time of 32.153 in qualifying and then comfortably beat Great Britain’s Becky James and Jess Varnish in the final. Russia beat China to take the bronze medal.

France had a nightmare ride in both events, with both the men’s and women’s teams disqualified for illegal changes.

Australia got revenge on their British rivals in the Men’s team pursuit, winning the event in an impressive time of 3:55.841, beating Denmark in the final. A young Great Britain team won the bronze ahead of New Zealand.

Great Britain dominated the women’s team pursuit, confirming they have mastered the new four-rider, four kilometre event. Katie Archibald replaced Laura Trott in the GB line-up and with Dani King, Joanna Rowsell and Elinor Barker the four broke the world record twice on the way to their second successive World Cup gold medal. The quartet went half a second faster than their world record in the qualifying and then went even better in the final against Canada, stopping the clock in a time of 4:16.552. Canada finished a distant second in 4:23.172, with Australian beating the USA to win the ride-off for bronze in a time of 4:22.533.

Germany took a third gold medal on day thanks to Stephanie Pohl winning the women’s points race. She gained a lap to score 20 points and then finished safely in the main group. Jasmin Glaesser of Canada was second with 13 points and Jarmila Machacova of the Czech Republic was third with 12 points. Laura Trott of Great Britain finished 11th.

Friday’s day two of racing includes women’s individual pursuit, men’s sprint, men’s omnium, women’s omnium, men’s scratch and women’s keirin events.