Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Ryan Elliott, Leigh Hoffman and Daniel Barber have kicked off Australia’s challenge at the world track cycling championships in Shanghai impressively with a silver medal in the men’s team sprint.
The Commonwealth champions’ brave attempt to upset the all-conquering Dutch outfit, headed by all-time great Harrie Lavreysen, on the opening day came after they’d earlier won a first-round duel on Wednesday against a British team which had ditched former Aussie star Matt Richardson.
Richardson, the triple Olympic medallist who had jumped ship to compete for GB after the Paris Games, was withdrawn from the British squad earlier in the week while being investigated for alleged misconduct.
With no love lost between the two teams, Elliott, Hoffman and Barber prevailed in the head-to-head, clocking 42.346 seconds to the 42.716 of Edward Lowe, Joseph Truman and Harry Ledingham-Horn, with Team GB clearly outgunned in the absence of Richardson, the fastest man ever over a flying lap.
As second fastest qualifiers, the Aussies went straight through to the final against the Dutch superstar trio of Roy van den Berg, Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland, the Olympic champs who’d won the three previous world titles and five of the last six.
All looked promising after Elliott led the trio into an early lead, but the sheer power of Lavreysen helped pull the two teams back virtually neck-and-neck going into the last circuit, where one of Hoogland’s famed last pushes ensured the Dutch made it four titles in a row, clocking 41.954 to Australia’s 42.470.
Astonishingly, it was the 10th time in a row that Lavreysen had medalled in the world championship men’s team sprint, featuring eight golds and two silvers, and it was the five-time Olympic champ’s 21st track world title in total.
Earlier, another flying Dutch star Lorena Wiebes prevailed in the women’s scratch race for her fourth world track gold, with Australian Maeve Plouffe finishing 14th.
The Australian women’s sprint trio of Kristina Clonan, Alessia McCaig and Molly McGill were defeated in their first-round contest by a Russian team competing under a neutral flag .
China went on to defeat a British trio, which featured Richardson’s girlfriend Emma Finucane, in the final.
