By Martyn Herman
GLASGOW (Reuters) – Women’s team pursuit world champions Italy were knocked out of gold medal contention as they could only finish fifth fastest in qualifying at the UCI World Championships on Friday.
Hosts Britain, led by local favourite Katie Archibald, were fastest in a time of 4:10.33, with New Zealand, the United States and France completing the top four.
Italy, the last team to ride the 4km heat around the Chris Hoy Velodrome, struggled and could only finish 4.4 seconds off the pace set by Britain.
Britain will ride against France in the first round on Saturday with individual pursuit winner Chloe Dygert’s U.S. outfit up against New Zealand with the gold medal to come from one of that quartet.
The Italian side led by Elisa Balsamo could still contest for bronze.
The second day of action on the track will see the men’s team sprint finals later as well as the women’s scratch race and women’s 500m individual time trial.
The first of the major road races takes place on Sunday with the men’s elite road race from Edinburgh to Glasgow.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Kim Coghill)
