Jack Carlin could do little to hide his delight after winning World Cup team sprint bronze but he was quick to turn his attention to repeating the feat on home soil next week.
Carlin, alongside Ryan Owens and Joe Truman, set a personal best as a trio at the first TISSOT UCI Track World Cup event of the season in Poland, beating Germany to the final spot on the podium.
The Brits stopped the clock in a time of 43.192 seconds, just three tenths of a second quicker than their opponents, with the Netherlands and France winning gold and silver respectively.
Next week, the world’s best track cyclists will descend on Manchester, as the World Cup returns to the city for the first time since 2013, and there’s no doubt their Pruszkow performance boosted the confidence of Carlin and co.
“Probably one of the team sprints that means the most to us so far,” Carlin wrote on Instagram.
“Bronze medal but more importantly a big PB for the team and a new PB for me also.
“Onto Manchester next week!”
But the team sprint bronze wasn’t Great Britain’s only medal on the second day of action in Poland, with the women’s team pursuit repeating the trick.
In another battle against the Germans, Neah Evans, Manon Lloyd, Emily Nelson and Emily Kay came out on top at the BGZ Arena.
They crossed the line in a time of 4:22.230 to win bronze, having just missed out on the gold medal final by 0.44 seconds against Canada, earlier in the day.
The Canadians went on to miss out on the top prize to European champions Italy.
“Bronze! Super chuffed to come away with a medal with these girls and knock another two seconds off our previous ride,” Nelson wrote on Twitter.
It wasn’t to be, however, for Olympic champion Elinor Barker as she narrowly missed out on bronze in the women’s omnium.
After finishing 16th in the opening scratch race, Barker had put herself back in the hunt for the medals with victory in the tempo and a second-place finish in the elimination race.
Barker sat third in the points race heading into the final sprint but was edged out by Danish rider Amalie Dideriksen who crossed the line first.
Elsewhere, Joe Holt finished 14th in the men’s scratch race final while Carlin exited the keirin in round one, with Olympic bronze medallist Katy Marchant knocked out in the sprint 1/8 finals by Laurine van Riessen, by just one hundredth of a second. Photo: SWpix.com
Sportsbeat 2017