Rio Olympics 2016: Bradley Wiggins and his team comfortably break world record in the men’s team pursuit
They are now massive favourites for another gold ahead of the final against Australia
BRADLEY WIGGINS and his all-conquering pursuit team broke their own world record on the way to the final here tonight.
The cycling knight dovetailed beautifully with Ed Clancy, Owain Doull and Steven Burke in a simply sensational ride that took almost a second off their previous best.
The Brit quartet ground down first round opponents New Zealand - coming home more than five seconds faster - and will now go for gold when they face down Australia in a couple of hours.
A performance that brought the house down at Rio’s packed Velodrome came minutes after GB’s sprinters also left the field trailing.
Golden boy Jason Kenny smashed the Olympic cycling record in qualifying - minutes after team-mate Callum Skinner had nicked his OLD best.
Skinner, from Glasgow, took 0.01 of a second off Kenny’s previous benchmark of 9.713 for the thigh-burning 200 metre event as the pair competed in the opening qualifying round.
But Kenny flew out of the traps to come home in 9.551 seconds…another 0.152 faster again.
Meanwhile, snubbed star Mark Cavendish has denied refusing to warm up with the pursuit team despite being named as official first replacement.
The Manxman didn’t turn up with the team, but took to Twitter - complete with crying-with-laughter emoji - to say: “Some reports that I'm refusing to warm up tonight at the velodrome. A bit early when I'm racing Sunday! Good luck to my teammates! Smash it!”