Great Britain Set World Record in Women's Team Pursuit at 2016 Rio Olympics

Great Britain turned heads in the women’s team pursuit at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro during Thursday’s qualifying run in the cycling track with a world-record time of four minutes, 13.260 seconds.

The group of Laura Trott, Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker and Joanna Rowsell-Shand achieved the feat, as Team Great Britain shared in the aftermath:

According to the Associated Press, Great Britain beat the previous world-record time of 4:13.683, which Australia set in 2015.

Here is a look at the best times in Thursday's qualifying, per Rio2016.com:

Place	Country	Time
1	Great Britain	4:13.260
2	United States	+1.026
3	Australia	+5.799
4	Canada	+6.339
5	New Zealand	+6.801
6	China	+11.986
7	Italy	+12.283
8	Poland	+15.728
9	Germany	+16.808

The United States proved to be a worthy opponent, and the Associated Press noted the Americans were “ahead of their pace until the final few laps of the 4,000-meter event” and may have dropped off to “conserve energy.”

However, Trott, Barker, Archibald and Rowsell-Shand set the pace in the early going and had plenty of fans supporting them in the arena, per the Associated Press. Given Thursday’s times, it figures to be a showdown for gold between the new world-record holders and the Americans, especially since Great Britain won gold in the 2012 Olympics in London and the United States captured the 2016 World Championships title.

Great Britain finished in third place in those world championships, and Barker said, “There’s maybe less pressure now because it’s not necessarily ours to lose” coming into the 2016 Games, per BBC.com.

Great Britain looked like a team racing without any hovering pressure on Thursday as it turned in a world-record time.