With the home crowd cheering at the Hong Kong Velodrome in Tseung Kwan O, the pursuit team of Leung Bo-yee, Leung Wing-yee, Yang Qianyu and Kwan Tsz-kwan, clocked more than 4 minutes and 34 seconds in the 4,000-metre race, but they finished 12th out of 13 teams.
They were part of the team that helped cyclist Ceci Lee defend her road cycling gold medal last week.
Leung Bo-yee said they were a little affected by the short turnaround.
“It was a bit tough. There were three days between races, and we came back from Zhuhai to Tseung Kwan O,” she told RTHK.
“But one advantage we have is that this is our home ground, we didn’t have to adjust to a new venue.”
Veteran Yang, meanwhile, said it was very enjoyable to race in front of the home crowd.
“The crowd kept on cheering for us. All of us had a rather peace of mind – we were out there enjoying the race. The time we achieved was actually faster than expected,” she said.
Team Henan managed a new national record with a time of 4 minutes and 15.659 seconds in the qualifiers.
For their part, Hong Kong sprinters Yeung Cho-yiu, Phoebe Tung and Ng Sze-wing, defeated Gansu riders in the qualifying round.
But their time of a 49.63 seconds put them 11th out of 12 teams, with only eight making the cut.
In the men’s draw, the Hong Kong pursuit team of Ng Pak-hang, Vincent Lau, Mow Ching-yin and Franco Chu were the closest to advancing.
Their time of 4 minutes 4.387 seconds was only 0.05 seconds behind 8th-placed Jilin.
The sprint team, meanwhile, managed a little under 44.7 seconds, good for 11 out of 13 teams.
