British women bring home Olympic pursuit gold

Hosts Britain collected their fourth gold medal from five events at the Olympic velodrome Saturday after the women's pursuit team triumphed in a new world record time of 3min 14.051sec. The USA finished second to take the silver with Canada completing the podium in the inaugural Olympic women's event, held over 3 km and 12 laps as opposed to 4 km and 16 for the men. Dani King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell had set a new world record for the 3 km event on Friday but sliced nearly a second off that time a day later in qualifying for the gold medal match in a stunning time of 3min 14.682sec. It sent them into the final against Sarah Hammer, Dotsie Bausch and Lauren Tamayo, who came in for Jennie Reed, but despite a tight start to the race the Americans faded over the last half. After the first four laps the USA were only 0.78sec down, but the deficit soon grew and by the finish they were over five seconds off the pace finishing in 3:19.727. Britain's new time was their third consecutive world record in as many rides. Canada, meanwhile, capped off their solid campaign to post a time of 3:17.915 which was enough to keep the fancied Australian trio off the podium. They finished fourth in 3:18.096.