'A dream come true' - USA win gold at last in the team pursuit at the Olympics

Two silvers and a bronze medal later, USA finally had their golden moment in the women's team pursuit at the Paris Olympics, where they emerged an unlikely winner.

The quartet of Jennifer Valente, Chloé Dygert, Kristen Faulkner and Lily Williams were just six hundredths of a second off world-record pace in their final against New Zealand, clocking 4:04.306 to sound the gun first. Under Dygert's strength, gaps formed in the final moments of the effort, but the team held it together over the line to take gold.

"I don't know exactly what happened," said Dygert. "But at the end of the day, a win's a win. That's really all we wanted."

The American quartet were never the favourites for gold in Paris. They qualified eighth of 10 teams for the Games, and suffered blows last week when their taliswoman, Dygert, crashed in both the time trial and the road race.

The 27-year-old addressed the media with a bandage under her chin inside the velodrome, covering three fresh stitches. The victory, she said, was the culmination of years of work within the national cycling programme.

"When I came into the programme in 2016, this was the medal that USA Cycling was aiming for, more than any other discipline. This has just been the focus, I think, from the beginning of my career," Dygert said.

"I used to be very stubborn in my personality, and I think me kind of getting over myself, and trying to be a better teammate on and off the bike, that really helped pull it together. Coming into this, I had a whole road programme just like the other girls did, and I was focusing on the time trial. I wasn't always there for the team, and I think that was really hard for them. But it came together."

This year's edition of the Olympics brought the fourth instalment of the women's team pursuit, an event that the men have competed in since 1908. Until now, the American men's squad had achieved one silver medal, in 1984, while the women had previously finished on the podium three times, but never reached the top spot.

As the current quartet sang the national anthem, the stripes and stars rising before them, there was maybe a sense of déjà-vu for Faulkner, who had already done the same in a victory ceremony after the road race on Sunday. "I'm still pinching myself," the now two-time gold medallist said. "It still doesn't feel real."

The 31-year-old, a Harvard-graduate-turned-venture-capitalist, only came to cycling in 2017, and first rode on the velodrome a year ago in the hope of a ticket to the Paris Olympics. After sealing her place, she sprung a surprise solo win in the road race, and shared another one with her teammates on Wednesday night.

"To be honest, I think I'll wake up in a week and it still won't feel real," Faulkner said. "I was going to be really happy to walk away with one medal, and to have two and have two golds is a dream come true. It's more than I expected, and I think that gives me hope and confidence for the future as well."

For bronze medallists, Team GB, a place on the podium brought a great sense of pride. The squad was without one of their leaders, two-time gold medallist Katie Archibald, who broke her leg in a freak garden accident a month before the Games and withdrew from the squad.

In their ride-off against Italy, Josie Knight led the British quartet - which also included Elinor Barker, Anna Morris and Jess Roberts - and pulled a commanding final turn to claim bronze over the line.

"We nailed it, and we've come away with an Olympic medal, and I think that's all we could ask for," Knight said with a smile afterwards.

GB won back-to-back golds in the event in 2012 and 2016, but had never gone as fast as the current squad, who set a national record of 4:04.908 in their first-round tie with the USA. 

"The track is an incredibly fast track, but we surprised ourselves with the ride that we put together," Knight said. "We knew we were capable of something good. We're technically really good, we're really smooth, and when you get those little things right, it ends up being a fast time, and that's what happened in round one. We're super-proud of that." 

The track action continues at the Paris Olympics on Thursday, with medals on the line in the women's Keirin and the men's Omnium.