Fachie and Hall take bronze at World Championships

Lora Fachie and Corrine Hall produced a fine ride to earn Great Britain a bronze medal on day two of the UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in the Netherlands.

The tandem pursuit champions were third fastest in qualifying and then just edged out the Irish pair of Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal to claim bronze.

And while there was some frustration at missing out on the gold-medal race, Hall was thrilled at the way the pair had responded to secure a medal.

She said: “Obviously we’d have loved to have taken the title. We knew we were going well in training, but we didn’t quite pull out the performance we were hoping for.

“However, we came back fighting this evening, and we’re very happy to come away with bronze, because we really had to fight for that at the end. It’s bittersweet, but it’s positive because we now know what we’ve got to do ahead of next year.”

It was a high class competition, with Fachie adding: “To have four bikes go 3:30 or below has never been seen before, so that’s exciting – we’ve got a challenge on our hands and we know where the target is now. It’ll be fun to go away and work on going quicker!”

In the equivalent men’s event Steve Bate and Adam Duggleby also went for bronze, but were beaten by Dutch duo Tristan Bangma and Patrick Bos on their own patch.

Elsewhere, Katie Toft claimed second in the WC1 500m time trial – improving on her time from last year’s championships and registering a personal best to clock 47.099. She was beaten by China’s Li Jieli who won gold.

Meanwhile Louis Rolfe had to settle for fourth despite breaking the world record in the MC2 kilo event. Rolfe edged out Matthew Robertson, who came fifth, but his time was then beaten by a trio of riders including Colombia’s Alejandro Perea, who took the gold.

In the MC3 kilo, Fin Graham came fifth while Megan Giglia narrowly missed out on a medal as she came fourth in the WC3 500m time trial, Paige Greco of Australia taking the gold.

There were two more world records from British riders, as Dame Sarah Storey in the WC5, and Robertson in the MC2, set new marks in the flying 200m race, a test event with no world titles awarded.

That was enough for victory for Robertson, with Dutchwoman Caroline Groot just edging out Storey for the win.

Pic: SWpix.com