Commonwealth Games: England beaten to gold by Australia in men's team pursuit final
Last Updated: 24/07/14 9:42pm
Sir Bradley Wiggins’s hopes of winning Commonwealth Games gold in the men’s team pursuit were dashed by a brilliant performance from Australia in the final in Glasgow.
The English quartet of Wiggins, Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Andy Tennant fell behind early in the 4km, 16-lap gold-medal race and were unable to regain parity.
They were 1.4 seconds down after the first 1km, 2.8 seconds adrift after 3km and ended up crossing the finish line more than five seconds behind the reigning world champions.
Australia's superb time of 3min 54.851sec was a new Commonwealth Games record, and came despite losing one of their four men after just over half-distance.
The result means Wiggins now has four Commonwealth silver medals to his name, but still no gold.
England's men's team sprint trio of Jason Kenny, Philip Hindes and Kian Emadi also claimed a silver medal after being beaten in the gold-medal final by New Zealand.
The Kiwi squad of Eddie Dawkins, Ethan Mitchell and Sam Webster stopped the clock in 43.181 seconds, which was more than half a second faster than the English team.
In the women's 500m time trial, England's Jess Varnish claimed a bronze medal as Australian pair Anna Meares and Stephanie Morton claimed gold and silver respectively. It was Meares's fifth Commonwealth title.
Sophie Thornhill and Helen Scott won gold for England in the women's sprint B2 tandem. Scotland's Aileen McGlynn and Louise Haston took silver to secure the host nation's first medal of the Games.
