Great Britain won silver in a pulsating men’s team pursuit final to secure a third medal in as many days in the Paris Olympic velodrome.
Ethan Hayter, Dan Bigham, Charlie Tanfield and Ethan Vernon were pipped to gold by Australia, who win this event for the first time since the 2004 Games.
Despite a strong start, the British quartet trailed Australia by tiny fractions of a second for most of the race and were under two-tenths of a second behind as they started the final lap.
But Hayter, who was leading the GB train, came out of his saddle in the closing 200m and almost lost control of his bike as Australia took the victory.
Hayter, Bigham, Tanfield and Vernon, as well as Ollie Wood who rode in the earlier rounds, have the honour of winning Great Britain’s 1,000th medal at the Olympic Games – combining summer and winter.
“We were so close and I could see it. I just really gave too much, my whole body went weak and I really struggled to hold myself on the bike in the end,” Hayter told BBC Sport.
“Sorry to the guys but I think we gave everything and we can be proud of that silver medal.”
On coming so close to gold, the 25-year-old added: “We were super happy to win a silver medal but it was really there for the taking for us and we kind of knew that. We went out to get it but just came short in the end, so it’s a shame.”
Team GB have have won medals in the men’s team pursuit at six of the past seven Olympics, the only blip in that record coming three years ago in Tokyo, when a controversial crash in their second round of racing against Denmark ended their 13-year reign as Olympic champions.
It was Denmark they defeated on Tuesday to reach the gold medal final, where they met an Australian quartet with a new world record of three minutes 40.730 seconds under their belts.
They crossed the line in three minutes 42.067 – slower than the previous world record held by Italy – against GB.
