Britain's team pursuit squads both rode their way to bronze as part of a four-medal haul for the Great Britain Cycling Team on day two of the European track championships in Paris.
The men's team sprint trio of Joe Truman, Ryan Owens and Jack Carlin took silver in the gold-medal final after a series of scintillating rides.
Elinor Barker returned from her post-Rio hiatus to add to the British medal haul with silver in the women's scratch race.
Barker's return
Elinor Barker proved she was still in superb form as she returned to international duty in the scratch race.
She's back! @elinorbarker won scratch race silver at #EuroTrack16 tonight and, she says, the start of something new pic.twitter.com/AwfTFyc7iN
— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) October 20, 2016
The Welsh rider was the first across the line but took silver, as the Lithuanian rider had already taken a lap.
Barker was happy and a little surprised to be back on the podium.
“I definitely didn’t expect to be on a podium again so early," Barker said.
"It was a little bit lonely without any teammates. It’s been a really long time since I’ve done an individual race that I’ve actually done well at. It was nice.”
Team sprint
Young trio Jack Carlin, Ryan Owens and Joe Truman showed that they meant business in the qualifying round of the men’s team sprint.
Unreal night with the lads getting 2nd in Elite Europeans, absoloutley buzzinnnn @jack_carlin97 @ryanowens0
— Joe Truman (@JoeTruman97) October 20, 2016
The British youngsters set the second fastest qualifying time of 43.494, which would pit them against the seventh-placed Czech Republic in the first round.
The first round was a very clear victory for the British riders, as they set a faster time than in their qualifier to progress to the gold-medal final, missing out by just six-hundredths of a second against Germany in a time of 43.494 seconds.
“It’s sort of a bonus for us, we never expected to medal here and to come away with a silver is fantastic,” Truman said.
Carlin added: “We all performed really well and we all PB’d, overall it was a really good day for us.”
Our team sprinters have dedicated their silver medal winning ride to someone very special!pic.twitter.com/uEq7rP4mBb
— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) October 20, 2016
The new pairing of Ellie Richardson and Rachel James looked as though they had been riding together for years, rather than a matter of weeks in their team sprint qualifying heat.
The duo set the fifth fastest time, setting up a first round match with Lithuania, the fourth fastest team, later in the programme.
In the first round, despite leading at the bell, the British pair were squeezed out of the finals by less than half a second and finished in fifth place overall.
"We improved on our time from qualifying, so we can't complain, I'm really happy with that," said James.
Richardson added: "I didn't expect to be here and was a late call up so just to get through these qualifying rounds is more than I could have hoped for."
Really happy with 5th place in a strong European Team Sprint field after just 2 weeks prep with @rachyjames1a href="https://twitter.com/BritishCycling">@BritishCycling pic.twitter.com/7T36nvIRxd
— Ellie Richardson (@Els_Richardson) October 20, 2016
Team pursuit
The women’s team pursuit squad, after setting the third fastest time in qualifying on Wednesday, rode their first round heat against second fastest qualifiers Poland.
The race went to form, with Poland just edging out the quartet of Dannielle Khan, Emily Nelson, Manon Lloyd and Emily Kay.
The British women’s time was the fastest of all the other teams however, and saw them safely into the bronze-medal final.
Super happy to claim the bronze medal at my first elite European championships with these girls pic.twitter.com/zHLoeBpFDi
— Manon Lloyd (@manonlloyd96) October 20, 2016
Another fantastic ride saw the foursome ride to bronze with seconds to spare over their French opponents in 4:26.744.
The men’s team pursuit came out determined to put up a fight for a medal after qualifying sixth fastest on Wednesday.
The quartet, which had switched Olympic medallist Steven Burke for Senior Academy rider Ollie Wood, won their heat against Belgium and then had to wait nervously to see whether their time would be good enough for the bronze medal race.
The final went even better for the British quartet, as they executed a catch of their Dutch opponents to claim a second team pursuit bronze medal for Great Britain.
