Great Britain’s women’s team pursuit quartet continued their stunning form on what was a golden first evening of the TISSOT UCI Track Cycling World Cup in London.

After impressing in the early rounds, the team of Laura Kenny, Katie Archibald, Neah Evans and Ellie Dickinson caught world champions the USA with over a kilometre of the final still to go, delighting the home crowd and securing their third world cup title in a row.

Afterwards, Archibald said:

“The way that we’ve gone out today has proven a really good formula. The most important part of a team pursuit is inevitably that last kilometre and we’re yet to really test that, but although the world championships seem a long way away, I’m excited to see what we can do there.”

There was British success in the men’s event as well, as trade team Huub Wattbike – Dan Bigham, Jonny Wale, John Archibald and Ashton Lambie – defeated Belgium to claim gold, and a youthful Great Britain team of Fred Wright, Will Tidball, Ethan Vernon and Matthew Walls powered back in dramatic fashion to beat the Italian quartet to bronze.

This world cup represents an historic first, with para-cycling events being included in the schedule for the first time, and some of Great Britain’s most well-known Paralympians ensured that the crowd enjoyed performances befitting of the occasion.

Paralympic team sprint champions Jody Cundy, Jon-Allan Butterworth and Louis Rolfe took gold; a second victory of the day for Cundy who had also claimed the C4-5 1km time trial title during the afternoon.

Neil Fachie and Matt Rotherham also won gold in the mixed B sprint event, while earlier on in the day Kadeena Cox won the C4-5 time trial, ensuring that Dame Sarah Storey had to settle for silver.

The day’s action concluded with another medal for Great Britain, as team sprint trio Joe Truman, Ryan Owens and Phil Hindes won silver after being defeated by the world champions, the Netherlands, in the final.

During the afternoon session, Katy Marchant and Lauren Bate narrowly missed out on qualification for this evening’s later rounds of the women’s team sprint as they finished ninth in qualification.

The action continues tomorrow, when the women’s omnium and sprint, and men’s keirin and Madison titles are decided.