Cycling: Cycling-Revenge is sweet for Danish team pursuiters

GLASGOW (Reuters) – Two years to the day after suffering Olympic heartache, Denmark’s Lasse Norman Leth and his team pursuit squad gained some revenge over their Italian tormentors at the UCI World Championships on Saturday.

Leth, together with Niklas Larsen, Rasmus Pedersen and newcomer Carl-Frederik Bevort, delivered a perfect ride in Glasgow to regain the world title they won in 2020 in Berlin.

Victory was especially sweet as it arrived on the anniversary of their loss to a Filippo Ganna-inspired Italy team in a thriller on the boards at Izu in Japan.

On that occasion Denmark led into the closing laps, having roared ahead, only for Ganna to put the hammer down and lead his quartet to glory in the last 100 metres, Italy’s first men’s team pursuit Olympic gold in 60 years.

This time not even Ganna on his gold-coloured bike could respond as Denmark won by more than two seconds after a tight early battle in which they were trailing.

“Maybe not revenge but I was eager to get back at them,” Leth, who changed his name from Lasse Norman Hansen after marrying fellow cyclist Julie Leth last year, told Reuters.

“It was two years ago today so it was great to come out on top this time.”

Denmark, who set the world record when winning the team pursuit in 2020 but also had that snatched away by the Italians in Tokyo, were clinical around the Chris Hoy Velodrome and never panicked when Italy forged an early lead.

This time they were never going to let their lead slip.

“In the last kilometre we were quite close to them, we could see them and we were quite far ahead. I wouldn’t say I was afraid of them coming back on us in the end like before, I was quite confident we had it.”

Teenager Bevort said his team mates had spoken a lot about the Olympic final in the build-up.

“I wasn’t there so it affected the other guys a bit more,” Bevort said. “They were thirsty for some revenge.

“We had a great start in the qualifiers but there were still a few things we could do better. Today we did it.”

The next mission will be carrying the form in to next year’s Olympics Games and shaving off seconds from their winning time of 3:45.161 — nearly three seconds off Italy’s best.

“This is promising but I think we can be better in Paris,” Bevort said.

(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Hugh Lawson)