Germany were simply unstoppable in the women's team pursuit final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, setting their third world record of the Games.
The Germans, who set a new world record in each of the two qualifying rounds, set a new mark of 4:04.242 in the final, beating the Great Britain team by over six seconds in a dominant display.
From the gun the Germans, Franziska Brausse, Lisa Brennauer, Lisa Klein, and Mieke Kroeger, took the advantage. Over the first 1000m they had already put over a second into the GB team of Katie Archibald, Laura Kenny, Neah Evans, and Josie Knight, and continued to extend that gap as the race went on.
GB then lost another second over 2000m and then again over 3000m. With both teams then down to two riders in the final kilometre the Germans simply pressed home their advantage, pushing the gap out to just under three seconds further and finally crossing the line over six seconds ahead of GB to claim the gold medal.
Defending champions Great Britain will have to settle for the silver medal after putting in their slowest performance of the three rounds at these Olympics with a 4:10.607. They had set a new world record in the first round heats earlier on Tuesday, riding to a phenomenal time of 4:06.748.
That stood for all of five minutes as Germany then rode to a 4:06.159 before subsequently beating that again in the final.
The bronze medal went to USA, who beat Canada in the bronze final with a time of 4:08.040.
The men's team pursuit is still to be decided with the finals taking place on Wednesday. Great Britain fell out of medal contention after losing to Denmark in their heat, despite a bizarre crash between one of the Danish and one of the British riders. Denmark will now face Italy in the gold medal final.
