China’s Gong Jinjie and Guo Shuang took gold in the in the women’s team sprint Thursday, beating Germany in the final after hosts Britain were disqualified in controversial circumstances.
The Chinese pair won in a time of 32.619 seconds, 0.197 seconds outside the world record they had set earlier in the day, and 0.179 seconds faster than Germany’s Kristina Vogel and Miriam Welte.
Britain’s Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Varnish were initially set to compete in the final after setting their own world record time earlier in the competition, but were disqualified after heated debate between British coaches and officials who ruled that Pendleton had changed over to Varnish earlier than the rules allowed.
The Australian pair of Kaarle McCullogh and Anna Meares charged to bronze, beating the Ukrainian pair of Olena Tsyos and Lyubov Shulika in the bronze medal race.
McCullogh and Meares won in a time of 32.727 seconds, which would have been an Olympic record earlier in the day, with the Ukrainian 0.764 seconds behind.
