A melodramatic clang connected the last thigh of the men's squad pursuit lawsuit sparked chaos and disorder - and a just spot of aggro - arsenic the mayhem continued successful the way cycling astatine the Tokyo Olympics.
Denmark were closing successful connected triumph implicit Great Britain successful the four-man race, and with conscionable 250 metres remaining successful the 4km event, would advancement done to the last and a match-up against Italy for the golden medal.
But chaos past ensued.
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Great Britain had earlier mislaid their 4th rider, which is usually planned, but their 3rd rider - Harry Tanfield - mislaid interaction with his 2 teammates.
And arsenic Denmark caught him, Frederik Madsen - connected the beforehand of the Dane bid - seemed to person his caput down and failed to spot Tanfield, riding consecutive into the backmost of him astatine a velocity conscionable implicit 60km/h.
Both riders deed the way hard and slid a just distance.
They got up gingerly, with Tanfield looking rather shaken.
The TV audio seemed to prime up Madsen shouting "F--- them!" arsenic helium walked away.
The clang near some teams with conscionable 2 riders.
That created disorder arsenic the last clip is usually taken from the 3rd and last rider to transverse the line.
After lengthy deliberations, contention officials ruled Denmark had officially caught Great Britain and truthful they would advancement to tomorrow's final.
An entreaty against the effect whitethorn beryllium lodged by the Brits.
The Danes were the blistery favourites aft smashing the Olympic grounds successful the qualification circular and are besides the reigning satellite champions.
However, Italy acceptable a caller satellite grounds successful their thrust against New Zealand successful a thrilling finish.
New Zealand took the pb successful the 2nd fractional of the contention but the Italians clawed their mode backmost to acceptable a caller satellite grounds of 3:42.307.
Australia's men's cycling squad pursuit squad were yesterday rocked by a freak mishap after Alex Porter's handlebars snapped disconnected his motorcycle mid-race, sending him crashing face-first into the velodrome.
Great Britain's women's squad pursuit squad besides had an incidental during qualifying astatine Izu Velodrome.
The Brits enactment up a monster effort to flooded Team USA and advancement to the final, mounting a caller satellite grounds of 4:06.748 successful the process.
As they crossed the decorativeness line, the squad began congratulating each different but it went awry erstwhile Katie Archibald and Neah Evans crashed into each other, sending the brace tumbling down the banked walls of the velodrome.
No rider was earnestly injured successful the process.
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