A first ever Track Cycling World Championship medal was the order of the day for Chris Latham as he became the second Brit to reach the podium in Hong Kong with bronze in the men’s scratch race.
Following on from Elinor Barker’s scratch race silver on Wednesday, Latham added a second medal to Great Britain’s haul with a stylish performance in the velodrome.
It was enough to see him finish behind Poland’s Adrian Teklinski and Germany’s Lucas Liss in the standings, with the former launching an attack with eight laps to go to open up a huge gap over the rest of field on his way to the rainbow jersey.
Latham, 23, timed his race well to win a bunch sprint for third, having tailed towards the back of the group at the halfway stage.
And with plenty of racing still to come over the weekend, Latham is confident we won’t have seen the last of him on the podium.
“I’m really happy with that, and happy to finally come away with a medal,” he said.
“I wasn’t sure if [Teklinski] was going to do it. I knew I had a good sprint to maybe bridge a fair gap if someone went that early, but he did alright.
“I was in a decent position most of the time, I had a little group tail but I just followed Felix [English] through.”
He added: “It has taken the pressure off, but I want to have full legs in the basket for the omnium – I want to get a [rainbow] jersey in that.
“I think I showed that I have a bit of a sprint, so hopefully I will have that for the points race.
“It’s my first World senior medal so I’m buzzing. Spot on.”
There was disappointment, however, for the men’s team pursuit quartet, who were pipped to the bronze medal by Italy.
The Brits – Ollie Wood, Mark Stewart, Kian Emadi and Steven Burke – had led at the 3000m mark, but the Italians fought back to stop the clock almost two seconds before their opponents.
“We’re pretty disappointed to come fourth, but at the end of the day, the Italians were the better team,” said Wood.
“We did the best we could do, so onwards and upwards from here. We’ve got three more years to get it right.”
Stewart added: “We came in not really knowing what to expect, and we were all excited to qualify fifth and have a chance for bronze.”
In the women’s team pursuit, Great Britain’s four of Barker, Manon Lloyd, Ellie Dickinson and Emily Nelson set a time of 4:21.446 in their first round race with Poland.
But it wasn’t enough to secure them a berth in the bronze-medal contest, with Italy edging them out into fifth place.
Having impressed in the morning’s first round, 20-year-old Joe Truman missed out on a spot in the keirin final, finishing eighth overall.
Earlier in the day, it wasn’t to be for Olympic bronze medallist Katy Marchant, as she bowed out in the 1/16 finals of the women’s sprint, pipped to the line by just 0.028 seconds by China’s Junhong Lin, while Lewis Oliva exited the keirin competition in the repechages.
Sportsbeat 2017