Jon Dibben adds a golden touch for GB in London
Dibben won the final two sprints to reach 48 points – the same score as Austria’s Andreas Graff – but took gold as he crossed the finish line of the 160-lap (40-kilometres) race first. Belgium’s Kenny De Ketele took bronze in the non-Olympic event.
Britain have six medals from the opening three days of competition – double the tally in the whole of the 2015 event – after Joanna Rowsell Shand, Laura Trott, Elinor Barker and Ciara Horne won team pursuit bronze and Andy Tennant placed third in the non-Olympic individual pursuit. Trott won the first gold on Thursday, in the scratch race.
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Hide AdThere was reason for optimism elsewhere ahead of the final two days of competition.
Mark Cavendish was seventh at the halfway point of the men’s omnium, but just 18 points behind leader Fernando Gaviria, after finishing second to the Colombian in the elimination race and Jason Kenny and Callum Skinner were in the quarter-finals of the men’s sprint.
GB’s women’s team pursuit squad recovered from their ragged qualifying ride to claim bronze.
A disjointed performance from Rowsell Shand, Barker, Horne and Trott on Thursday meant Britain could finish third at best – and they delivered last night to claim a podium place.
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Hide AdBritain clocked four minutes 16.540 seconds in the ride-off for third place in the four-rider, four-kilometres event to finish ahead of New Zealand, who clocked 4mins 20.225secs.
Britain set a national record of 4: 16.350 in the first round to advance to the ride-off for bronze. It was almost five seconds quicker than their time a day earlier and second only to the United States, who qualified for the final in 4:14.806 – the second fastest time ever.
They went on to win gold in 4:16.802 while Canada took silver in 4:19.525.
New Zealand’s Sam Webster is Olympic champion Kenny’s opponent in this morning’s best-of-three quarter-finals, with Skinner drawn against Russia’s Denis Dmitriev.