The golden quartet once again delivered as Great Britain’s team pursuit squad shone to secure the first title of the TISSOT UCI Track World Cup season.
The four of Laura Kenny, Elinor Barker, Ellie Dickinson and Katie Archibald breezed to glory in a time of 4:18.138 to secure gold in Canada, beating Italy into top spot.
But that wasn’t all as Ollie Wood won his second individual silver in two weekends, this time in the scratch race, before helping the men’s team pursuit squad also featuring Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Kian Emadi to bronze.
While there was also bronze for the team sprint trio of Jason Kenny, Philip Hindes and Ryan Owens, the former two making their TISSOT UCI Track World Cup season debut in Milton.
On-form quartet top the podium
As European champions and current world silver medallists, the women’s team pursuit outfit have become rather accustomed to taking their place on the podium.
Indeed Kenny, Barker and Archibald are all Olympic champions and they certainly showed why in Milton, comfortable from start to finish in their gold-medal race against Italy.
Leading by almost a second after the first kilometre, the advantage only grew thereon for a British team that qualified in top spot form the first round.
By the end nearly four seconds separated the British and Italian teams, following up the gold won on the home boards of Manchester this time last year.
Wood maintains impressive form
Omnium silver last week, scratch race silver this, the TISSOT UCI Track World Cup season is turning into rather a good one for Ollie Wood.
While four races were on his agenda in France last time out it was all about one in Canada, but it proved no problem as the 23-year-old made it back-to-back medals.
There was no doubting the identity of the winner as Ukraine’s Vitaliy Hryniv made a sumptuous move to overtake the field, taking a lap to confirm his gold medal.
But Wood proved the next man over the line to follow in compatriot Mark Stewart’s silver footsteps after he secured points race silver seven days ago, while bronze went to Greece’s Christos Volikakis.
Eleanor Dickinson finished 12th in the women’s equivalent race.
Men's pursuit squad back in the medals
Wood was far from done there either, helping the team pursuit squad to their second medal of the World Cup season, this time bronze following their silver in France.
Olympic champions Ed Clancy and Steven Burke joined world champion Kian Emadi and Wood for the bronze final in Milton, where France waited in the battle for the last medal.
It was a nip-tuck race throughout but one in which the British quartet held the lead throughout, eventually stopping the clock in 3:54.134, two seconds clear.
That was far from the only impressive performance as the HUUB Wattbike Test team showed exactly why they are a squad on the up.
After a strong showing in France the quartet converted that into a medal this time around, the four of Dan Bigham, Jonny Wale, Harry Tanfield and John Archibald taking silver behind Denmark.
Sprint trio get season off and running
While the endurance riders certainly made their mark the sprinters joined the party too, Philip Hindes, Jason Kenny and Ryan Owens taking their place on the team sprint podium.
Their time of 43.126 seconds was enough to oust New Zealand and take bronze, and was actually quicker than the Beat Cycling Club effort of 43.306s in the gold-medal race, though gold went to the Netherlands.
Katy Marchant and Lauren Bate competed in the women’s race but missed out on the medal races in Milton.
The action continues into Saturday with the men’s omnium and keirin while the women’s individual sprint and Madison will take centre stage in Canada.
Tickets for the London round of the TISSOT UCI Track Cycling World Cup are available to purchase here.
