Charlie Tanfield is celebrating a Commonwealth Games silver medal after Australia proved too strong for England in the team pursuit final.
The host nation blitzed to gold in a world-record time of 3min 49.804sec at the Anna Meares Velodrome on the Gold Coast on Thursday.
Tanfield, Kian Emadi, Ethan Hayter and Ollie Wood stopped the clock in 3:55.310 in the final to finish 5.506 adrift of the winners.
The Aussie quartet of Leigh Howard, Sam Welsford, Kelland O’Brien and Alex Porter became the first team ever to go under the 3min 50sec barrier for the 4km pursuit. Tanfield said:
“To get a medal is great. Fair play to the Aussies, that was ridiculously fast. We didn’t have the best of luck but at the end of the day we can be proud of what we tried to do.”
With Jordan Kerby in place of O’Brien, Australia had already set a record-breaking pace in qualification.
They lowered their own Commonwealth Games record of 3:54.851, set in Glasgow four years ago, with a time of 3:52.041 to confirm themselves as gold medal favourites.
Tanfield & Co, who were last on track, clocked 3:55.399 to book their spot in the final, overhauling the 3:56:294 registered by New Zealand.
The Kiwis qualified third but were later disqualified after one of their bikes was found not to conform with UCI regulations.
That gave the Wales squad of Sam Harrison, Rhys Britton, Joe Holt and Ethan Vernon an unexpected shot at the bronze medal against Canada.
However, it was the Canadians who clinched the final spot on the podium with a time of 4:00.440 to beat the Welsh by 0.922sec.
Tanfield will now turn his attention to the individual pursuit on Friday, with qualification at 6.17am and the bronze and gold medal races at 11.24am and 11.31am, respectively.
The 21-year-old, from Great Ayton in North Yorkshire, will complete his Commonwealth Games campaign in the 37.8km individual time trial on the Currumbin Beachfront on Tuesday (1am).
