Women's pursuit team finishes fourth

Poland competes with New Zealand during heat 2 of the  Women's Team Pursuit Semifinals at the Rio...
Poland competes with New Zealand during heat 2 of the Women's Team Pursuit Semifinals at the Rio Olympic Velodrome. Photo: Reuters
The New Zealand women's pursuit cycling team finished fourth, behind Canada, after recording an easy victory over Poland in their first round race.

In what was largely a heart-breaking morning for New Zealand's track cycling team - with two riders knocked out of their events by the smallest of margins - the pursuit team offered a glimmer of hope.

The team of Lauren Ellis, Racquel Sheath, Rushlee Buchanan and Jaime Nielsen beat Poland by nearly ten seconds, finishing in a time of 4:17.592 to qualify for the bronze medal race which will take place at 8:07am (NZ time).

However, Canada proved too good in the race for bronze, with a time almost 4sec faster.

Earlier, Sam Webster missed out on a place in men's sprint quarter-finals after comfortably going down to Russia's Denis Dmitriev in his 1/8 final race before finishing second by just 0.048s in his repechage.

It was also heartbreak in the women's keirin as both Natasha Hansen and Olivia Podmore missed out progressing past the first round.

Hansen was first pipped into third place by a photo finish in her heat before finishing an even more agonising second in her repechage in her second photo finish of the morning.

Podmore spectacularly crashed out of her heat - she was unlucky to be caught up in the melee as three riders ahead of her first fell from their bikes - before finishing fifth in her repechage race, obviously affected by her big fall.

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