Shropshire Star

Katie Archibald and Elinor Barker get the golden feeling again

The pair collected their second gold medals by helping GB to victory in the women’s team pursuit at the Track World Cup

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Katie Archibald and Elinor Barker collected their second gold medals of the weekend by helping Great Britain to a comfortable victory in the women’s team pursuit at the Track World Cup in Manchester.

Archibald and Barker had been afforded a morning off after winning gold in the madison on Saturday night, allowing Manon Lloyd and Emily Kay to help Neah Evans and Emily Nelson to book Britain’s place in the gold medal race with a straightforward first-round victory over Belgium.

And there was no doubt about the final either with Archibald, Barker, Evans and Nelson beating Italy by a margin of almost five seconds.

It was a third medal of the weekend for Archibald, who took silver in the omnium on Friday night as well.

“It’s cool to have ended on a high, not just in the time we’ve set but the way we’ve ridden it,” the 23-year-old said.

“I didn’t expect it to go that well, because we’ve got it by a margin there and I’m pretty proud of it to be honest.”

As Olympic champions, it was no surprise to see Archibald and Barker doing extended turns on the front but Evans and Nelson were doing one-and-a-half lap efforts of their own in an impressive showing.

“It’s not surprising, but it’s nice to be pleasantly informed as to what’s in this team,” Archibald added.

“This is only the second or third major competition of rolling out of a team pursuit plan and building that to race day. I’m enthused about it. I think there’s a lot more to come.”

The winning time was an improvement on the four minutes 18.471 seconds the quartet set in qualifying on Saturday, making it the fastest time by a British squad since Archibald and Barker joined Laura Kenny and Joanna Roswell Shand in breaking the world record at the Rio Olympics.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting that,” Barker said. “I thought we’d maybe break 18. I’ve not seen the split but that will be one of the fastest times we’ve done outside of the Olympics and I think that’s a really nice statement to be able to put out at this point in the cycle.”

Britain’s Olympic team sprint champion Callum Skinner was in the colours of trade team 100% Me this weekend, and the Scot collected bronze in the kilo on Sunday.

The 25-year-old set a personal best of one minute 1.061 seconds, two weeks after suffering a back injury in the same event at the European Championships in Berlin.

“To come here and stay injury free was a win, to set a PB was another win, and to come away with a medal was the icing on the cake,” he said. “It’s a really good step forward from two weeks ago.”

The event was won by Australian Matthew Glaetzer, who became the first man to break the minute mark at sea level with a 59.970 in the first round, before winning with a time of one minute 0.081 seconds.

“I’m really happy for him,” said Skinner, who spent time training with Glaetzer in Australia last winter.

“That time just blows the mind. We thought it would be a long time coming before we saw someone break the minute mark at sea level. For him to do that is incredible.”

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