Turnbull turns on the after-burners to claim Olympic team sprint silver on track cycling debut

By Tom Harle at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

Morpeth track cyclist Hamish Turnbull was the toast of Team GB as he won Olympic silver on debut.

The 25-year-old combined with Tokyo silver medallist Jack Carlin and fellow debutant Ed Lowe to exceed pre-Games expectations.

There was no disgrace in being beaten to gold by the Netherlands, who broke their own world record twice in just over an hour.

“We’ve executed three really solid rides,” said Carlin.

“I think we can be proud of that as a team, we knew we were up against it coming into it, but stuck to our processes.

“We focused, knuckled down, it’s the first Olympics for Hamish and Ed and I think both of them stepped up to the occasion and they’ve got a medal to show for it.”

Having missed the team sprint podium altogether at last year’s Worlds in Glasgow, Team GB were touted to be one of a few nations in the hunt for the so-called minor medals.

Turnbull admitted: “To be honest, we came here expecting to fight for third. As soon as we got into that gold final, all the stress was off. We tried to express what we could do and enjoy it.”

Carlin, Turnbull and Lowe raised expectations by posting the second-quickest time in qualifying on Monday night.

They backed that up with a superb first-round ride to overhaul Germany and earn the right to meet the Netherlands in the gold medal final.

The trio had to face down a Dutch dynasty that has yielded six successive European titles and five of the last six rainbow jerseys - their only defeat coming to Australia at the 2022 World Championships.

Harrie Lavreysen, Jeffrey Hoogland and Roy van den Berg took a slice off their own world record in the first round and became the first team ever to go sub-41 seconds with a blistering performance in the final, too good for the Brits by nearly a second.

“As a team, we came and delivered,” said Carlin.

“It was the best we could have done probably on the day. Hamish rode really flat, which I didn’t do for Jason [Kenny] in Tokyo.

“That’s down to his delivery and he made my lap look good. The two boys came in without any experience at this kind of level, I’m really proud of both of them.”

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