British women win the pursuit Gold !

Young team.................and to be fair the Italians threw it away by dropping their 3rd rider....................

Working on a bit of time delay here in the Grassmarket, but that truly was a great ride from the Team GB girls. Up and down for the first 3k, but relentless pressure forced the Italians to crack on the last kilo. Just shows that the British tactics of treating the discipline as a time trial still beats out teams that think it's a race.

Italians still discussing what went wrong at the medal ceremony.

Eurosport know how to schedule their ad breaks, don't they?!

That looked like a pretty heavy crash.

Boom, whap, Team GB hammer it, French cycling like they have strings of onions hung around their necks.

What do the men and women of Great Britain have iin common?

They are the best team pursuiters in the world. The women's race was the more exciting of the two but both were close.

Here's the results page for this weekend's meet.

Interesting to note the women started fairly quickly and didn't lose much pace once they got up to speed; the men started like they were going for a 3:55 and slowed down considerably towards the end. Compared to the same meet in 2012, the winners were quicker today.

As expected, both of the ECh medallists made today's podium; that last sprint for the gold was quite physical and a great finish to the sprint comp. No medal for Owens today but his performances bode well for the future.

The lineup in the women's keirin final was somewhat similar to the ECh equivalent.

As it happens, half of the victorious women's TP quartet became world junior champions on the same track in 2013.

In addition, Danni Khan (who was in the qualifying round quartet) is an endurance convert, seeing as she actually won the sprint and 500m TT back then.

If you're a cyclocross fan, the Bike Channel (which I always keep forgetting to check) has exclusive coverage of the Soudal Classic Cyclocross Tour this winter. It's a series of Dutch & Belgian races which runs in parallel with the UCI World Cup and actually features pretty much the same cast of riders. There's races this afternoon at 12:45, the Sint Niklaas Waaslandcross.

I only came across the track cycling the other day by searching the red button C601 epg guide for BBC TV.
The lack of promotion for some extensive coverage was pathetic. But it's always the same.

Difference from the World Cup is that riders are competing for sponsored teams, not national ones. Doesn't make much difference, it's not a sport that lends itself to team tactics.

In today's morning session, Belgian youngster Robbe Ghys gained a lap with two others and won the men's scratch race. It also seems that being world champion didn't save Sebastián Mora from being fined 100 Swiss francs for being tardy.

Oliva will contest tonight's keirin semis, though Truman was beaten in the early rounds.

Justyna Kaczkowska took gold in the individual pursuit after yesterday's TP shocker; Emily Nelson took 4th place after breaking 3:40 for the first time. Simona Krupeckaitė was the only woman to break 11 seconds in sprint qualification.

The big draw for tonight's crowd will be the women's madison - the domestic pairing of choice is Manon Lloyd and Katie Archibald.

Simon and Chris were just explaining the format of the World Cup........four meetings over the next 3 months or so and in order to qualify for the World Championships you have to compete in 2 of them and presumably get enough points

I wonder if this means that some of our 'Olympic Stars' will turn up to the later world cup meetings ?

I'm still disappointed that we couldn't field a women's sprint team...... there must be some youngsters they could have put in just like the other 3 squads have.

The Brits finish 3rd and 4th in the Points race behind Cameron Meyer (Aus)

Sam Harrison got bronze

Brilliant from Katie Archibald and Manon Lloyd to win the inaugural Women's Madison at World level.........especially as both of them were on the deck after a crash right at the beginning of the race

The Madison was easily the highlight of the evening. I actually think the men's race should be reduced to the same number of laps as the women's, rather than increasing the women's race. Our duo recovered brilliantly from their crash. The French also got themselves out of trouble to push us all the way.

Those two endurance bunch races couldn't have been any more different if you tried.

That points race masterclass by Meyer (including 3 lap gains!) was right up there with his victory at the 2010 WCh - further proof (if his podium finish at the London Six Day wasn't enough already) that his temporary 'retirement' from cycling did him the world of good.

That women's madison had everything, including a crash before the race proper - several teams remained in contention for the win right until the end. It was hard to see how GB could have made a lap gain mid-race because the field was in absolute bits after they attacked.

It was good to see Oliva getting a keirin medal - Harrison's points race medal may well have given him some inspiration. That last sprint by Krupeckaitė after she made a tactical mistake was something else.


After Apeldoorn, rounds 3 and 4 take place in February and this season's WCh is a very late edition (12-16 April), so I expect that will be the case.

BTW, Archibald did her wrist in during that crash. That makes yesterday's win even more impressive.

Great performance from the British team last night. Excellent coverage on the BBC's Red Button. More to come today, but those watching BBC2 will have to suffer Clare Balding's "Track Cycling for Dummies" coverage.
It's a tough sport sometimes, Katie and Mannon recovered well from their crash, others weren't so lucky, particularly the two girls who had badly bruised faces in the earlier race, I hope they have no lasting scars.

It seems that coverage is on BBC2 from 2.30 to 4.50 then it comes on red button at 4.50 until 6.15

so if you want to watch most of the afternoon session it looks like there's no red button until 4.50

As regards the two girls with the ripped faces........despite the era of equality it always seems worse when it's a girl gets injured..........

I noticed that, so I will record the earlier programme and start watching it half an hour or so in. That should be long enough to fast forward through the trivia so that I miss none of the action before the red button coverage starts.

I've never seen worse facial injuries shown on track cycling TV coverage before. Hopefully it's just bruising and dirt off the track. For many sports people, particularly the women, "their face is their fortune" as far as future sponsorship opportunities go, once their competition days are over.

New Omnium is absolutely horrendous. What a cock up.

I think the live coverage is on the BBC Sport website before it comes on the Red Button. I'm watching on Eurosport today.

Regarding the Omnium, I think it should include all the main track cycling disciplines. The tempo race is not one I am familiar with.

Today is going too slowly. I presume all the flashbacks to the last two days are for the BBC which couldn't be bothered to put them on the main channels? This is what the absence of two Omnium events has made way for.

Yeah........I've flicked to Eurosport and confusingly they're showing a women's long distance race but not the same one that's on BBC2 now

Fancy Sylvan Chavenel winning the pursuit !

the final event of the women's Omnium is coming up on BBC and Eurosport now

Has there been a Men's Omnium ?.........can't remember it

Also has there been 2 men's keirin finals ?......I'm sure Oliva got a bronze a couple of days ago and today another Brit, (Stewart ?).....seemed to get a medal in another keirin final........I'm confused, not for the first time.......