Records were aplenty on the opening day of the 2019 HSBC UK | National Track Championships in Manchester as the Archibald siblings dominated proceedings.
The riders didn’t need a morning to ease their way into competition as Scotsman, John Archibald broke his own world record in the individual pursuit qualifying, setting a time of 4:09.584 – beating his previous record that he set in Switzerland by over half a second.
Archibald then went on to clinch the gold medal later in the day by pipping his HUUB Wattbike team-mate, Dan Bingham to national honours.
Afterwards, the 29-year-old said: “I didn’t expect to do such a quick time here, although it was in the back of my mind. The conditions we had in Switzerland were probably better than here, but I was fresher and more motivated here, and so it proved.”
His sister and Olympic champion, Katie, won the women’s equivalent for the third year running to go along with her bronze in the women’s sprint – which was won by Sophie Capewell.
Archibald said: “I was really pleased with the time. My brother was saying that I was really rocking around the bike in the last 500 metres, which usually means that people are empty, but I was going faster, so something has gone wrong there! But I’m really happy that I had that at the end.”
There was para-cycling success for Matt Rotherham and Neil Fachie as they recorded world record times as well as clinch gold. Jody Cundy and Jon-Allan Butterworth also broke records in their events.
Kadeena Cox and Sophie Thornhill also collected para-cycling gold medals.
North West Region, a team including Olympic champions Jason Kenny and Phil Hindes, won gold in the team sprint.
The action continues tomorrow, when Laura Kenny, Katie Archibald and Elinor Barker will do battle in the scratch race. and Jason Kenny will look to add the sprint title to his sprint crown. The men’s kilo and points, women’s keirin and team pursuit and para-cycling individual pursuit titles will also be decided.
Photo credits: swpix.com
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