Behind the success of the German sprint team at the Track World Cup in Aguascalientes, the German record set by the four-track team almost disappeared. Henning Bommel, Theo Reinhardt, Nils Schomber and Kersten Thiele burned a truly remarkable performance on the fast track. At an altitude of almost 1900 meters, the quartet improved the 13-year-old German record in the team pursuit over 4000 meters to an outstanding 3:59,144 minutes. The old record since the success in the final of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney was 3:59,781 minutes. The foursome had already achieved the record run of 16 laps in qualifying. The special thing about it: Of all the teams, the German foursome completed the last kilometer the fastest with 57,304 seconds. The fact that the finals were still just missed was a small drop of bitterness. In the end, Australia secured victory with a top time of 3:55,841 minutes, around two and a half seconds ahead of Denmark, Great Britain and New Zealand.
“The gaps to the top nations have narrowed significantly and we were able to leave our closest competitors for the Olympic qualification – Belgium, Switzerland, Spain – behind us. The team was able to take another important step forward.", national coach Sven Meyer commented on the performance. And the sports department of the Federation of German Cyclists was also satisfied: "What the boys have shown is a further improvement in performance", according to Patrick Moster.