British men break world pursuit record

MANCHESTER, England -- Great Britain's team pursuiters broke the world record as they successfully defended their title at the track cycling world championships in Manchester on Thursday evening.

The British quartet of Bradley Wiggins, who won the individual gold on Wednesday, Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas and Paul Manning completed the 4000 meters race against Denmark in three minutes, 56.322 seconds.

The time beat the previous best of three minutes 56.610 seconds set by Australia when they won the Olympic gold in Athens in 2004.

Wiggins believes the team can go even quicker at the Beijing Olympics, when they will hope to improve on their silver medal behind Australia four years ago.

He said: "The big aim is always the Olympics but we prepared well for this. Then we had a couple of illnesses over the last six weeks which put to bed the thought of doing a world record, so I absolutely believe we can go faster."

On a great evening for the host nation, Rebecca Romero overpowered two-time defending champion Sarah Hammer to win the women's individual pursuit title.

Romero, a former world champion in rowing who won an Olympic silver medal in 2004, clocked a winning time of three minutes 30.501seconds to beat the American who began fading badly less than halfway into the race -- eventually finishing over three seconds adrift.

Australia's Katie Mactier claimed her second consecutive bronze in the 3km discipline after overpowering Britain's Wendy Houvenaghel in their medal duel.

Romero, who won Olympic silver in the quadruple sculls rowing event at Athens in 2004, only turned to track cycling in 2006. However, she made an immediate impact, winning the British road time trial in practically her first race.

After becoming British time trial champion on the track in 2007, she grabbed her first world medal, a silver, after finishing second behind Hammer in the pursuit at last year's championships in Mallorca.

Britain claimed a third gold on the night when Victoria Pendleton and Shanaze Reade defended their team sprint crown against China.

The Chinese pairing of Jinjie Gong and Lulu Zheng claimed the silver medal, with Germany taking bronze after winning their medal match-up with France.

Pendleton, the world sprint champion, and reigning world BMX champion Reade set a new world best time of 33.186 seconds for the two-lap event to beat heat rivals France and claim their spot in the final.

And despite China taking a slight lead after the first lap of the two-lap event Pendleton dug deep to pull back the deficit and come over the finish line in a time of 33.61 seconds. E-mail to a friend