GB women bag pursuit silver

Australia win gold in new world record

Houvenaghel: team pursuit silver

Great Britain finished second in the women's team pursuit at the Track Cycling World Championships in Copenhagen and also saw their world record smashed twice in quick succession.

Joanna Rowsell, Wendy Houvenaghel and Lizzie Armitstead had their global benchmark beaten by New Zealand in the bronze medal ride before facing Australia in the final.

The Australia trio of Ashlee Ankudinoff, Sarah Kent and Josephine Tomic dipped below the new mark to emerge triumphant in a world record of three minutes 21.748 seconds, while Britain finished in 3m 22.287s.

New Zealand had clocked 3:21.552 to take bronze ahead the United States and better the mark Britain set at last year's World Cup event in Manchester.

It was the first time Britain have relinquished control of the event - now an Olympic discipline - since it was introduced to the world programme in Manchester in 2008.

Olympic individual pursuit champion Rebecca Romero was part of the victorious team on home soil, but missed the 2009 World Championships while on a self-prescribed sabbatical and is absent again after her main events - the women's individual pursuit and points race - were scrapped from the Games programme.

Whether Romero, who is now reinventing herself as a road time-trial rider, returns for London 2012 remains to be seen.

Heartache

Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Varnish finished fourth in the women's team sprint, a discipline incorporated into the revised Olympic programme.

Twelve months ago, Pendleton won silver alongside her fellow 2008 world champion Shanaze Reade.

But the BMX ace was absent in Copenhagen and Pendleton was partnered by 19-year-old Varnish for the two woman, two-lap event.

The British duo were fourth fastest in qualifying and were beaten by Lithuania in the race for bronze, clocking 33.593s to Gintare Gaivenyte and Simona Krupeckaite's 33.109secs.

Defending champions Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch beat China in the final, winning Australia's third gold of the championships in a world record of 32.923s.

Chris Newton, who was fourth in the points race on day one, was fifth in the men's scratch race.

The 36-year-old from Stockton-on-Tees lost a lap to three riders as Alex Rasmussen of Denmark won gold.

It was the host nation's first win of the championships as Rasmussen triumphed ahead of Colombia's Juan Esteban Arango Carvajal and Kazuhiro Mori of Japan in the 15km event.

Defending champion Taylor Phinney of the United States won the men's individual pursuit, another event to be dropped from the Olympic programme in London.

Phinney dominated the final against New Zealand's Jesse Sergent, clocking a time of four minutes 16.660s.