Canadian women narrowly advance in Olympic team pursuit track cycling
Canada finishes 8th in men's team sprint, will race for 7th place in men's team pursuit
Canadian track cyclists Maggie Coles-Lyster, Sarah Van Dam, Erin Attwell and Ariane Bonhomme advanced past the qualifying stage of the Olympic women's team pursuit on Tuesday in Montigny-le-Bretonneux, France.
Canada will be matched up against defending champion Germany in Wednesday's first round after squeaking through by just 0.05 seconds as the eighth-fastest team, keeping its medal hopes alive.
The Canadian foursome clocked a time of four minutes 12.205 seconds at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome, edging Ireland for the final qualifying spot.
New Zealand finished first in 4:04.679, followed by the United States (4:05.238) and Great Britain (4:06.710).
The U.S. will next face the British team while New Zealand takes on Italy, with the winners of both heats moving on to Wednesday's gold-medal race. The next two fastest first-round teams will compete for bronze, with the rest racing for places five to eight.
WATCH l Tuesday's Olympic track cycling races:
The Germans were 3.9 seconds faster than Canada while finishing fifth on Tuesday. Three of their members were part of the world record-setting team at the last Olympics in Tokyo.
Bonhomme, 29, helped Canada finish fourth in the event in Tokyo, while her pursuit teammates are Olympic rookies.
Fellow Canadians Tyler Rorke, Nick Wammes and James Hedgecock finished eighth in the men's team sprint later Tuesday with a time of 43.944, falling to China by 1.4 seconds in the race for seventh.
The Dutch trio of Roy van den Berg, Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland successfully defended the team sprint title while breaking their own world record set earlier in the day, beating Great Britain with a time of 40.949. Australia edged the host French team by 0.4 seconds for bronze.
Canada was defeated by the Netherlands in its first-round race.
The Canadian men's pursuit team of Dylan Bibic, Mathias Guillemette, Michael Foley and Carson Mattern will race against Belgium for seventh place on Wednesday after losing their first-round heat against France.
Watch live coverage of Olympic track cycling on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Olympics app and CBC Gem.
WATCH l How does track cycling work at the Olympics?:
