Cycling at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's team pursuit

The men's team pursuit event in cycling at the 2004 Summer Olympics consisted of matches between two teams of four cyclists. The teams started at opposite ends of the track. They had 16 laps (4 kilometres) in which to catch the other cyclist. If neither was caught before one had gone 16 laps, the times for the distance (based on the third rider of the team to cross the line) were used to determine the victor.

The Australia-Great Britain rivalry continued in an event which saw a new world record.

Medalists

Gold	Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster, Brad McGee, and Luke Roberts  Australia
Silver	Steve Cummings, Rob Hayles, Paul Manning, and Bradley Wiggins  Great Britain
Bronze	Carlos Castano, Sergi Escobar, Asier Maeztu, and Carlos Torrent  Spain

Results

Qualifying round

For the qualifying round, teams did not face each other. Instead, they raced the 4000 metres by themselves. The top eight times qualified for the first competition round, with the other two teams receiving a rank based on their time in this round.

Rank	Team	Names	Time
1	Australia (AUS)	Graeme Brown Peter Dawson Brett Lancaster Stephen Wooldridge	4:00.613 Q
2	Great Britain (GBR)	Steve Cummings Paul Manning Chris Newton Bryan Steel	4:03.985 Q
3	Spain (ESP)	Carlos Castano Sergi Escobar Asier Maeztu Carlos Torrent	4:04.421 Q
4	Germany (GER)	Robert Bartko Guido Fulst Christian Lademann Leif Lampater	4:05.823 Q
5	Netherlands (NED)	Levi Heimans Jens Mouris Peter Schep Jeroen Straathof	4:06.286 Q
6	Ukraine (UKR)	Volodymyr Dyudya Roman Kononenko Sergiy Matveyev Vitlaiy Popkov	4:07.175 Q
7	France (FRA)	Mathieu Ladagnous Anthony Langella Jerome Neuville Fabien Sanchez	4:07.336 Q
8	Lithuania (LTU)	Linas Balciunas Aivaras Baranauskas Tomas Vaitkus Raimondas Vilcinskas	4:08.812 Q
9	Russia (RUS)	Vladislav Borisov Alexander Khatuntsev Alexei Markov Andrey Minashkin	4:09.394
10	New Zealand (NZL)	Hayden Godfrey Peter Latham Matthew Randall Marc Ryan	4:10.820

Match round

In the first round of match competition, teams were seeded into matches based on their times from the qualifying round. The fastest team faced the eighth-fastest, the second-fastest faced the third, and so forth. Winners advanced to the finals while losers in each match received a final ranking based on their time in the round.

Heat 1

Germany (GER)	4:03.785 Q	(4th)
Netherlands (NED)	4:04.605	(5th)

Heat 2

Spain (ESP)	4:02.374 Q	(3rd)
Ukraine (UKR)	4:05.266	(6th)

Heat 3

Great Britain (GBR)	3:59.866 Q	(2nd)
France (FRA)	lapped	(7th)

Heat 4

Australia set a world record time in this match.

Australia (AUS)	3:56.610 Q	(1st)
Lithuania (LTU)	lapped	(8th)

Medal round

Teams were again re-seeded, this time based on their times in the match round. The third- and fourth-fastest teams faced off in the bronze medal match, while the fastest two teams competed for the gold and silver medals.

Bronze medal match

Spain (ESP)	4:05.523
Germany (GER)	4:07.193

Gold medal match

Australia (AUS)	3:58.233
Great Britain (GBR)	4:01.760

Final classification

1.  Australia (AUS)
2.  Great Britain (GBR)
3.  Spain (ESP)
4.  Germany (GER)
5.  Netherlands (NED)
6.  Ukraine (UKR)
7.  France (FRA)
8.  Lithuania (LTU)
9.  Russia (RUS)
10.  New Zealand (NZL)