New Zealand women’s team pursuit set the standard with a record-breaking performance in qualifying on day two of track cycling at the Paris Olympic Games.

The quartet of Ally Wollaston, Bryony Botha, Emily Shearman and Nicole Shields came within 0.4s of the world record in topping qualifiers. In doing so they smashed nearly four seconds off the previous national record set at the Nations Cup in Jakarta last year.

They will take on Germany in the round one match tomorrow, with the winner moving into the gold medal race.

Bryony Botha said the team will not play defensively tomorrow.

“We were really happy with that ride. We were trying to remain process-focussed in our ride and we achieved that. We wanted to stay calm and look after eachother and we are happy with our ride.

“We were aiming for a 4:07 and when we started hearing 14.8 second laps we decided to run with it and hold it – so we are really happy.

“We are definitely aiming to go faster tomorrow. We will look to do something quicker than we did today and hopefully go for the world record.”

The men’s team pursuit will fight out for fifth place tomorrow after narrowly missing out on a crack for the bronze medal.

They clocked a superb 3:43.776 time to account for Belgium in their round one clash to push their case as one of two fastest losers to chase a spot in the bronze medal race.

Their time was just 1.4s outside the national record and looked to be good enough before Denmark recorded 3:42.80 in losing to Great Britain. Then Italy, who knocked New Zealand out in the Tokyo Olympic Games, lost to world-record setting Australia. But they recovered to clock 3:43.206, to edge the kiwis by half a second for the remaining spot in the bronze medal race.

New Zealand will take on hosts France for fifth and sixth.

In a big day of racing tomorrow, day three will feature Sam Dakin in individual sprint, Ellesse Andrews in the keirin, the women’s team pursuit first round, and if success the final at night; and men’s team pursuit ride for fifth.