Britain underlined its Olympic gold-winning potential by successfully defending its 3km team pursuit title in a world record time at the World Track Cycling Championships Thursday. A day after its men's team set a new world mark of 3min 53.295sec in winning gold against Australia in the 4km event, the British women followed suit. The trio of Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell and Danielle King powered over 12 laps of the Hisense Arena track to clock 3min 15.720sec, beating the world record of 3:16.850 they had set earlier in qualifying. Australia finished in 3:16.943 to take the silver, while Canada (3:19.529) won the bronze after beating New Zealand (3:19.847). The host, represented by Annette Edmondson, Melissa Hoskins and Josephine Tomic, lifted the roof at the Hisense Arena earlier Thursday when they bettered Britain's world mark of 3:18.148 — set six weeks ago in London — in a time of 3:17.053. Britain, however, went on to reclaim the record in an improved time of 3:16.850 to top the qualifying session. In the final Australia went out fast, taking a 1.3sec lead after four laps of the track. That deficit came down to just eight tenths four laps further on and, as the Aussies tired, the British stuck to their plan for the final four laps to leave Australia trailing at the finish. Australia's Anna Meares earlier threw down the gauntlet to her rivals by setting a world record in the women's individual sprint to top qualifying. The reigning world champion's time of 10.782 seconds eclipsed the 10.793 mark set by Simona Krupeckaite of Lithuania in Moscow in 2010. Russia's Anastasia Chulkova won the women's points race gold. Chulkova scored a total of 31 pts over the 25km race, which had 10 sprints, to finish ahead of Canada's Jasmin Glaesser (28) and Caroline Ryan (24) of Ireland.
