Thomas expects to smash records in London after Melbourne glory
GREAT Britain’s Geraint Thomas believes the men’s pursuit team can go faster still at London 2012 after they laid the foundations for Olympic glory with gold at the Track Cycling World Championships yesterday.
Thomas, Ed Clancy, Pete Kennaugh and Steven Burke set a new world record of three minutes 53.295 seconds to beat arch-rivals Australia in Melbourne by one tenth of a second.
The time shaved less than two hundredths of a second off the previous best, which Thomas and Clancy helped set at the last Olympics, but the Welshman insists they can clock 3:50 in London this summer.
“Like we did in Beijing, I’m sure we’re going to be two or three seconds quicker come London,” said Thomas. “There’s nothing we can do about how fast they [Australia] are going to go; we know we’re going to get faster.”
Britain’s sprinters suffered disappointment, with a two-woman team featuring Victoria Pendleton finishing fourth and a three-man squad including Sir Chris Hoy disqualified from their race.
Ben Swift made up for missing out on a team pursuit place by winning the scratch race, a non-Olympic event.