Cycling at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's team sprint

The women's cycling team sprint at the 2012 Olympic Games in London took place at the London Velopark on 2 August.

Kristina Vogel and Miriam Welte of Germany won the gold medal with a time of 32.798 seconds. China won the silver medal and Australia took bronze.

Competition format

The team sprint is a two-lap race between two teams of two cyclists, starting on opposite sides of the track. Each member of the team must lead for one of the laps.

The tournament consisted of an initial qualifying round. The top eight teams advanced to the first round. The first round comprised head-to-head races based on seeding (1st vs. 8th, 2nd vs. 7th, etc.). The winners of those four heats advanced to the medal round, with the two fastest winners competing in the gold medal final and the two slower winners facing off for bronze.

Schedule All times are British Summer Time Date Time RoundThursday 2 August 2012 16:00 Qualifications and final

Results

Qualification Rank Heat Country Cyclists Result Notes 1 5 Gong JinjieGuo Shuang 32.447 Q, WR, OR 2 4 Victoria PendletonJessica Varnish 32.526 Q. ER 3 5 Kristina VogelMiriam Welte 32.630 Q 4 4 Kaarle McCullochAnna Meares 32.825 Q 5 3 Yvonne HijgenaarWilly Kanis 33.253 Q 6 3 Sandie ClairVirginie Cueff 33.638 Q 7 2 Lyubov ShulikaOlena Tsyos 33.708 Q 8 1 Daniela LarrealMariaesthela Vilera 34.320 Q 9 1 Lee Eun-JiLee Hye-Jin 34.636 10 2 Diana GarcíaJuliana Gaviria 34.870

The ride of Varnish and Pendleton for Great Britain took place prior to that of Gong and Guo of China, and broke the existing world record. It was then immediately beaten by the Chinese team's time in the next heat.

First round

Rank Heat Country Cyclists Result Notes 1 4 Gong JinjieGuo Shuang 32.422 WR, OR 2 2 Kristina VogelMiriam Welte 32.701 3 1 Kaarle McCullochAnna Meares 32.806 4 3 Lyubov ShulikaOlena Tsyos 33.620 5 1 Yvonne HijgenaarWilly Kanis 33.090 6 2 Sandie ClairVirginie Cueff 33.707 7 4 Daniela LarrealMariaesthela Vilera 34.415 8 3 Victoria PendletonJessica Varnish 32.567 REL*

Great Britain won their heat with a time which would have qualified them for the gold medal match, but they were relegated for an early exchange.

Finals

Final bronze medal Rank Country Cyclists Result Notes Kaarle McCullochAnna Meares 32.727 4 Lyubov ShulikaOlena Tsyos 33.491

Final gold medal Rank Country Cyclists Result Notes Kristina VogelMiriam Welte 32.798 Gong JinjieGuo Shuang 32.619 REL* China had the best time in the final, but were relegated for an early exchange.

References

Victoria Pendleton & Jess Varnish relegated from team sprint BBC