Cycling: Netherlands wins world title in men's team sprint

The Dutch led from start to finish at the Stab Velodrome as Jeffrey Hoogland, Harrie Lavreysen and Roy van der Berg added to their Tokyo gold medal with a time of 41.979 seconds.

Roy Van den Berg of Team Netherlands celebrates after winning the men's team sprint final at the UCI Track Cycling World Championship in Roubaix, France on Thursday.

Olympic champion the Netherlands beat host France in the men's team sprint final at the track cycling world championships on Wednesday.

The Dutch led from start to finish at the Stab Velodrome as Jeffrey Hoogland, Harrie Lavreysen and Roy van der Berg added to their Tokyo gold medal with a time of 41.979 seconds.

It was, however, a decent performance by France, who won an unexpected bronze medal at the Tokyo Games.

Gold, gold and gold

The @Olympics Champions defend their rainbow stripes #Roubaix2021pic.twitter.com/8i9BMyv1BL

— UCI Track Cycling (@UCI_Track) October 20, 2021

 

Germany took bronze after its women broke the world record with a time of 46.064 to snatch gold from the Russian Cycling Federation team with Britain claiming bronze.

Italy set the best time in the men's pursuit qualifying before easily beating Britain while France took a comfortable win against defending champion Denmark to set up a final showdown with the Olympic champion on Thursday.

On a good opening day for Italy, European champion Martina Fidanza broke away from the bunch and quickly opened an unassailable lead to claim the first gold medal of the world championships in the women's scratch race.