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Views from SunSport’s Martin Lipton
GB women’s pursuiters will ride for bronze after being shaded in a thrilling dog-fight with the USA.
In a gruelling battle, Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jessica Roberts fought back to close to within barely a tenth of a second entering the final sprint.
But it was an ask too far as they crossed the line in a British record 4:04.908, almost two seconds quicker than in yesterday’s qualification round but 0.279 seconds behind the US.
It has still been a terrific effort by a team that lost star rider Katie Archibald just before the Games after she broke her leg in a freak garden accident.
And they will be favourites to take the bottom rung of the podium against Italy this evening.
GB knew that a repeat of their qualification time of 4:06.710 from yesterday would be enough to earn a shot at bronze.
It always seemed unlikely that they would be able to overhaul the Americans, who had been almost 1.5 seconds quicker on their first ride.
The British quartet were slightly quicker away but gradually the Americans injected extra pace.
By half-way, the gap was up to 0.396 seconds but it then started to come down as the endurance part kicked in.
The Americans, though, had the answer, back to half a second clear with just two laps left and while there was a fraction of doubt as that gap shrunk, they held on to win.
