Sir Bradley Wiggins will win a fifth Olympic gold medal by simply repeating what he did in qualifying for the men’s team pursuit.
Wiggins, along with Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Owain Doull, came just a few tenths shy of the world record set by the British pursuit team in winning gold at London 2012.
The line-up will not be changed tonight, meaning Mark Cavendish will play no part in the pursuit ambitions.
But head coach Iain Dyer said a straight repeat would be enough to secure gold after the British team topped the time sheets by three-and-a-half seconds from Denmark and Australia.
“For the lads, it’s just about execution,” said Dyer. “We feel good, we’re confident, we’re on schedule. The plan was to do what we’ve done so nothing changes, the lads just come back and do it again.
“The semi-final in terms of pacing might be something we can gauge depending on how that goes, and then hopefully leave a bit in the tank for the final.”
The women’s pursuit quartet of Katie Archibald, Laura Trott, Elinor Barker and Joanna Rowsell-Shand were in devastating form yesterday, taking nearly half a second off the current world record of Australia. The United States would have got closer than the one-second margin if not for a couple of mistakes.
The British female quartet will be confident of holding off the Americans when they return to the velodrome for tomorrow’s final.
