Team pursuiters bidding to get golden moments back on track

FOR three Olympics between Beijing and Rio, Great Britain's male pursuiters were the flagship unit of their velodrome super team.

- Malik Ouzia

Other individuals - Victoria Pendleton, Chris Hoy and the Kennys, in particular were better known, but nothing quite symbolised Team GB's velodrome supremacy like the aerodynamic whirr of eight wheels and four engines circling the track as one.

And so, nor did anything quite show the extent to which the rest of the world had caught up by Tokyo like the manner in which their 13-year reign as Olympic champions came to an end.

It began on the morning of the Izu Velodrome's heats, when Ed Clancy, veteran of all three gold medal-winning teams, announced his immediate retirement owing to back trouble.

It ended a few hours later with his replacement, Charlie Tanfield, lying on the track bewildered, after Denmark's charging train had ridden straight into his rear, not expecting that a British pursuit line-up could splinter so badly that one member would fall onto their front wheel.

Britain were out, of the competition and the medals, for the first time since Atlanta 1996.