Women’s Team Sprint
The shock of the Women’s Team Sprint wasn’t the fact that the Great Britain duo of Jess Varnish and Victoria Pendleton didn’t make the Final – although few would have predicted it – or that they missed out on the Bronze medal to the Chinese pair of Jinjiw Gong and Shuang Guo. In the penultimate heat the German pairing of Miriam Welte and Kristina Vogel finally matched the dominance of their male colleagues – something they’ve been promising to do for some time – and broke the World Record set by Varnish and Pendleton in London in February. And then, up against local heroes Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch in the Final – in front of a hugely partisan crowd – they broke it again to take the Gold. They were absolutey delighted – and didn’t stop smiling until long after the medal ceremony.
The crowd provided the first controversy of the evening with a spectator in the middle of the back straight interrupting the normally hushed final countdown to the start of the Australia vs Gre
at Britain heat with a chant of ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie – Oi, Oi, Oi’. In the shadow of the MCG, that wasn’t cricket.
Qualification
1 Germany 32.630 WR (WELTE Miriam, VOGEL Kristina)
2 Australia 32.752 (MEARES Anna, McCULLOCH Kaarle)
3 China 32.937 (GONG Jinjie, GUO Shuang)
4 Great Britain 32.941 (VARNISH Jessica, PENDLETON Victoria)
Finals
GOLD Germany 32.549 WR (WELTE Miriam, VOGEL Kristina)
SILVER Australia 32.597 (MEARES Anna, McCULLOCH Kaarle)
BRONZE China 32.870 (GONG Jinjie, GUO Shuang)
4 Great Britain 33.160 (VARNISH Jessica, PENDLETON Victoria)
