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Irresistible women’s track bike express: Olympic gold in world record time
Irresistible in the Tokyo area: With a new world record time, the four women’s track bike team won gold.
© Tim de Waele / Getty Images
Germany has a gold foursome again. Lisa Brennauer and Co. triumph with a world record in the 4,000 meter team pursuit. Just as men have celebrated for decades. It is the second medal for the German track cycling team.
Lisa Brennauer lifted her gold bike, Lisa Klein put her hands over her face in disbelief. The women’s express rushed to gold in the team pursuit at the Olympic track cycling competitions in Izu with the next world record show and has revived an old success story in German cycling. For decades, the men’s four was synonymous with German perfection, now Franziska Brauße, Lisa Brennauer, Lisa Klein and Mieke Kröger have made Olympic history.
The German quartet won a breathtaking final on the high-speed railroad in the world record time of 4: 04.249 minutes against Great Britain and ensured the first German Olympic triumph in the endurance field of women since Petra Rossner in Barcelona in 1992. The German track radasse was able to celebrate for the second time after Emma Hinze and Lea Sophie Friedrich had won silver in the team sprint the day before.
One world record after the other
And the women’s foursome also took home the world record. In 4: 06.166 minutes, Brennauer and Co. were already stopped in the semifinals. The British record from the run before that lasted less than ten minutes. In the final it went even faster against hopeless Britons. “We thought we would not just let the British women take the record away from us,” said Brauße of the German press agency.
With all the German power of women in Izu, the men cannot keep up. As in Rio, the medal runs were out of reach for the team sprinters. And the men’s foursome has also had to wait for an Olympic medal since the gold race in Sydney 21 years ago.
Bahnrad-Vierer: At some point it clicked
Gold in the women’s foursome, who would have thought that possible before the summer games? When the 4,000-meter team pursuit was first included in the program at the 2014 World Cup, the German team strolled around the oval with a time of 4:43 minutes. For comparison: The British women were 20 seconds faster at the time, which is an eternity in high-tech track cycling. Kröger was already there back then.
But at some point it clicked. “We tried to work on ourselves and to get faster and faster, step by step. We had some catching up to do. It was all the better that the gap was getting smaller and smaller,” said Brennauer of the arduous way to the top. Already at the World Cup 18 months ago it was enough to get bronze in Berlin. And in the days before Tokyo, it was clear to the Golden Girls that even the world record was possible. The oval made of Siberian pine, together with the high temperatures, were ideal for the BDR drivers’ record hunt.
Don’t forget the sick teammate Gudrun Stock
“It’s just a harmony, we’re really good at it. When it runs, it’s like being on rails. You are in focus, you only see the front wheel in front of you, you make yourself small and give everything,” says Klein, describing the rush of speed. In the hour of success, the four did not want to forget Gudrun Stock. The Munich resident, who was still part of the team at the World Cup bronze, was unable to travel to Japan due to illness. “Gudrun was a big part of the group on the way here. The world record is also on her cap, even if she wasn’t there with her own legs,” said Brennauer.
The men’s foursome, on the other hand, is far from world record times. 3: 48.861 minutes meant a German record, which was not enough for the medal runs on Wednesday. Because Italy around superstar Filippo Ganna raced to the new fabulous time of 3: 42.307 minutes. German foursome had won five Olympic victories and 16 world championship titles since 1962.
The team sprinters are also waiting for the first medal in nine years. Timo Bichler (Kaiserslautern), Stefan Bötticher (Chemnitz) and Maximilian Levy (Cottbus) clearly missed the medal runs. The four-time Olympic participant Levy won bronze with the team sprinters in 2008 and 2012. The only Olympic victory went to 2004 in Athens Rene Wolff, Stefan Nimke and Jens Fiedler.
