IZU, Japan (Reuters) – China successfully defended their Olympic women’s team sprint title by defeating Germany in the final as the track cycling programme got underway at the Izu Velodrome on Monday.
Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi crossed the finish line in 31.895 seconds, edging the German pairing of Lea Friedrich and Emma Hinze by 0.085 seconds.
The result marked a second consecutive Olympic gold for Zhong, who took the Rio title with Gong Jinjie five years ago.
Both of China’s cycling golds in Olympic history have arrived in the women’s team sprint event.
Earlier, Bao and Zhong broke China’s own team sprint world record mark with a time of 31.804 in their first round victory over Lithuania.
Russian Olympic Committee’s Daria Shmeleva and Anastasiia Voinova beat Netherlands duo Laurine van Riessen and Shanne Braspennincx in the third place match to take the bronze.
(Reporting by Shiho Tanaka in Izu and Hardik Vyas in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)
