Track Cycling World Championships 2022: World record show & gold! Dream start for Hinze & Co.
DPA
· 12.10.2022
Completely exhausted but overjoyed, Emma Hinze, Lea Sophie Friedrich and Pauline Grabosch fell into each other's arms on the wooden oval.
Click through: The previous world champions of the 2022 Track Cycling World Championships
Track World Championships: German trio set world record
The German team sprint women got off to a dream start at the Track Cycling World Championships on the Olympic track in Paris with a world record performance. Hinze, Friedrich and Grabosch raced to their third title in a row and impressively continued their winning streak in the sprint events.
After three laps of the wooden oval in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the trio finished in a world record time of 45.967 seconds, leaving China's Yufang Guo, Shanju Bao and Liying Yuan (46.631) no chance. The German team sprinters had already dominated the competition in Berlin in 2020 and 2021 - 663 days before the Olympic showdown, Hinze and Co. were already well prepared.
German track rider tops time from Roubaix
It was a gala performance by the three sprint aces. After a moment of shock in qualifying with a false start, the Golden Girls showed their full potential in the second run. In 45.983 seconds, the trio even topped the world record run from the World Championships in Roubaix a year ago (46.064). And in the final, they went even faster.
Disillusionment for the German women's track foursome
For In contrast, the winning streak of the German women's foursome came to an end as expected after the personnel upheaval. The two Tokyo Olympic champions Mieke Kröger and Franziska Brauße, together with Lena Charlotte Reissner and Lea Lin Teutenberg, were clocked in a time of 4:16.898 minutes in qualifying, putting them in fifth place. This means that the quartet can still finish in the race for third place on Thursday.
However, the German team sprinters were at their best at the start. The BDR riders were the fastest in all heats - and all within just over three hours.
It could therefore be another golden World Championships for the German sprinters. In the past two years, Hinze and Friedrich have won all the world titles between them.
Hinze & Friedrich still have big plans
After their latest coup, the two track cycling stars now have six world championship titles each. And both still have a lot to do in France: The sprint, 500 metre time trial and keirin disciplines are on the programme for Hinze and Friedrich until Sunday.
For the women's four, on the other hand, a great run of success came to an end, as the team had won almost everything. After winning gold in Tokyo, the foursome, which was named Team of the Year at the Athletes' Gala, also triumphed at the 2021 World Championships and the 2021 and 2022 European Championships. However, multiple world champion Lisa Brennauer ended her career after the 2022 European Championships in Munich. In addition, Lisa Klein will not be competing at the World Championships due to health problems. And replacement Laura Süßemilch is not yet fully recovered after her crash injury at the Tour de France.
The German men's four, which had also undergone a personnel change, fared even worse. Theo Reinhardt, Tobias Buck-Gramcko, Nicolas Heinrich and Leon Rohde clearly missed out on the finals with the seventh-best time of 3:52.057 minutes.
The German team sprint men also return home without a medal. However, fourth place was a sign of respect. Australia surprisingly won the World Championship title.
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