USA Women’s Team Pursuit follow closely behind German world record

The Team USA Women's Team Pursuit squad finished with a time of 4:10.118. Photo: USA Cycling

TOKYO — Almost two weeks into the Tokyo 2020 Games, the track cycling events started in Shizuoka at the Izu Velodrome, about two-and-a-half hours south of Tokyo.

The U.S. Women’s Team Pursuit squad of Chloé Dygert, Jennifer Valente, Emma White, and Lily Williams are the reigning world champions.

The U.S. team went eighth in their qualifying round.

The German team broke the World and Olympic record in the round, with a time of 4:07.307. That was nearly three seconds faster than the record that was set by the British in Rio in 2016.

The British team finished second in qualifying, with a time of 4:09.022.

The Americans finished closely behind the two, scoring at 4:10.118, and earning the third seed in qualifying.

Regarding the world record performance by the Germans, USA Cycling Women’s Track Endurance Coach Gary Sutton said “we knew there would be world records broken this week. That’s the first thing. The track’s quick, and our schedule was for 4:07. We went out for 15-second laps. That’s what the plan was.”

“That’s where we’re at at the moment. But, you know, one thing you do here, you take one round at a time and tomorrow is a different day. We’ll go back. We’ll look at the data; we’ll look at the pool structure and try to rearrange things. That’s a big gap. But tomorrow’s a different day.”