The great Sir Chris Hoy was mightily impressed and was among the first to congratulate him at the Glasgow Velodrome. With a world record show in the team sprint, Emma Hinze and Co. provided the first highlight at the Super Bike World Championships on Thursday.
With fabulous times in the style of Hoy, who with six Olympic victories on the track is one of the most successful British athletes ever. Olympia is also a longing for the German team sprinters, because this one success is still missing in the otherwise perfect collection of titles.
Olympic gold as the crowning glory?
In Paris 2024 it should be so far for Hinze, Lea Sophie Friedrich and Pauline Grabosch. It would be the icing on the cake after four world titles in a row. “Only a few have managed that,” said Grabosch proudly: “Driving in a team is enormous pressure. We gave each other strength.” Hinze saw it similarly: “It’s harder to repeat that over and over again than to win it for the first time. I think it’s great that we always manage to do it again.”
In a heart-stopping finale, the German trio raced to victory in 45.848 seconds and improved their own world record from October by more than a tenth of a second. But the Brits were close, only 75 hundredths of a second behind. “No one can understand what it means to drive against a team with home advantage,” said Grabosch.
Silver in Tokyo
In Tokyo 2021 Hinze and Friedrich – at that time the team sprint was still held with two drivers – won silver and couldn’t really be happy. Accordingly, the bar is now set high for Paris. It helps if you can demonstrate strong nerves. Because at the 2024 Olympics, especially in the individual disciplines, it is not only against strong French women, but also against a euphoric home crowd.
The team sprint gold in Glasgow should only be the beginning, more (gold) medals await over 500 meters, in the sprint and in the keirin. Friedrich, who is just 23 years old, already has eight world titles, while Hinze, who is two years older, has seven successes to her credit. The world championship record of Kristina Vogel, who has been paralyzed since her training accident in 2018, with a total of eleven titles, is beginning to falter.
