Becky James and Jess Varnish win team sprint bronze

Becky James and Jess Varnish won team sprint bronze as the 2014 UCI Track Cycling World Championships began in Cali, Colombia on Wednesday.

The pair defeated the Russian team of Elena Brezhniva and Anastasiia Voinova in a time of 33.032 to win Great Britain’s first medal of the competition.

“It was a solid performance tonight,” Varnish said.

“It’s a really different track to what we’ve ridden on and you can’t really compare it to other performances. I think we should be happy.

“It’s a really good start.”

Varnish, who missed last year’s event in Belarus due to a career-threatening back injury, rode in the man-one position and together with James qualified third in 33.214 seconds.

In the bronze-medal final, Russia held a slim lead of just over one-tenth of a second at the halfway point but double world champion James managed to overturn the deficit to match the medal win from 2013.

Abergavenny RC rider James, who rides in the 500m time-trial on day two, said: “I’ll take everything a day at a time. Got today out the way and got a bronze medal. I’ll see how each day goes and do my best.”

Olympic champions Miriam Welte and Kristina Vogel retained the world title for Germany.