The Chinese pairing had set a strong message to their rivals during the qualifying for the final, the world record holders producing the fastest time of the event in 32.428sec.

The final delivered both excitement and uncertainty to the a sold out crowd on the first day of competition, with Shmeleva’s wheel spinning as the 21-year-old launched their effort out of the starting gate, causing her to lose balance.

Reminiscent of the men’s Olympic final at the same velodrome, when Britain endured a similar start, the Russian’s purposely crashed to receive a restart to the race.

The European champions, though, appeared to have only received a temporary respite as Jinjie and Tianshi produced another blistering performance to cross the line first in 32.575.

On closer inspection of their changeover at the close of the first lap, Tianshi was deemed by the commissaries to have begun to overtake her team-mate too early and the Chinese pair were relegated to silver medal position.

Germany’s Miriam Welte and Kristina Vogel, the world champions in 2014, got the better of Australia’s Anna Meares and Stephanie Morton by finishing in a time of 32.740.

With the top four teams remaining that same as 12 months ago, the status quo of women’s team sprint racing looks well established ahead of this year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. 

The home crowd were dealt disappointed after their sprinters Jess Varnish and Katy Marchant failed to book their place at the Games after finishing in fifth place in qualifying.

With qualification decided over two-years the British pairing headed into the event needing to finish two clear places ahead of France to claim the eighth berth available only to see their hopes were ended when Sandie Clair and Virginie Cueff placed seventh.

The drama in the women’s team sprint final would have provided New Zealand’s men with flashbacks to being relegated from gold medal position last year.

Their trio of Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Ed Dawkins had no such problems today, recording a time of 43.257 to beat The Netherlands’ Nils van't Hoenderdaal, Jeffrey Hoogland and Hugo Haak in the gold medal ride.

A time of 43.536 prove just enough for the German trio of René Enders, Max Niederlag and Joachim Eilers to beat their French rivals in the bronze medal contest.

Australia’s Rebecca Wiasak proved untroubled on route to defending her women’s individual pursuit title, as she first reached the final of the non-Olympic discipline by posting the fastest qualifying time of 3min 31.287sec.

The 31-year-old then defeated her Polish rival Małgorzata Wojtyra by more than six seconds to secure the gold medal in 3:34.099.

Canada’s Annie Foreman-Mackey completed the podium positions by overcoming the United States' Ruth Winder in a time of 3:39.902.

The final gold medal of the day came in the men’s scratch race, with Spain’s Sebastián Mora leading home a group of six riders who had managed to gain a lap on the remainder of the field.

Mora was followed home by Mexico’s Ignacio Prado and Switzerland’s Claudio Imhof, who claimed the silver and bronze medals respectively.

A quiet day for the host country, though, did come with some promise as Britain’s men’s team pursuit team of Jonathan Dibben, Steven Burke, Owain Doull and Bradley Wiggins qualified fastest for the semi-finals in 3:55.664.

They will now meet an Italian team who broke a 20-year-old national record to qualify fourth fastest.

Australia will meet rivals New Zealand in the second semi-final tomorrow.