Katie Archibald and Neah Evans ensured the home crowd went home happy last night, as the duo teamed up with Elinor Barker and Eleanor Dickinson to take gold in the women's team pursuit at the Glasgow Track Cycling World Cup at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

The Brits qualified in impressive fashion in the morning session and then stepped it up another level entirely to dominate Germany in the final.

The Brits took the lead from the very early stages of the final and never loosened their grasp, crossing the line in 4 minutes 12.2 seconds to take the victory.

Archibald is no stranger to the top step of the podium at World Cups but she declared herself particularly pleased with this gold medal, especially considering the form the German team showed in last week's World Cup in Minsk. However, some well-focused psychological preparation ensured they were able to perform to their best and ride the quickest time of any nation in this Olympic cycle.

"That was the same German team that rode in Minsk last weekend and they had a phenomenal ride, it was phenomenally paced and so you look at their splits and you think yeah, that’s a really consistent team," said Archibald.

"We daydream about being able to step up in the final but the flip side to that is we dream about what other teams can do. It certainly wasn’t in the bag but we’ve had a lot of conversations about focusing on the process as though there’s a trade-off on the result.

"What we’ve showed there is we can focus on the process and go with a strategy that we weren’t necessarily super-confident in and that does garner a good result and a fast time. So we’re happy."

This is Archibald's second Olympic cycle having won gold in Rio in 2016 and so she has something to compare her progress with. And with the barometer of four years ago, she could not be happier about the direction she is going.

"I feel good about where this season is going," she said.

"I’ve always been guilty of being wildly inconsistent – I always pull it out on race day but you don’t see the training sessions where I’m all over the place. Now though, I know that I’ve put the work in whereas before, I’d throw dummies out of the pram so I’ve managed to keep the head a bit better. So I think it’s gone a lot better than it’s ever gone."

Evans has been equally impressive this season and she too is thrilled by her progress. Eight months out from the 2020 Olympics, the team pursuit squad appear to be flying but Evans is adamant they can go faster still.

"That was was good - it’s the fastest I’ve ever gone, it’s the fastest the team has gone in a while so it’s good," she said.

"We’re now close enough to Tokyo that we’re looking ahead to that. So this isn’t the peak, we’ve got so much more to give and although we’re really fit, we haven’t done a lot of the top-end stuff yet. So it’s so encouraging seeing that we’re doing these great times and yet, we know we’ve got more to build on.

"I absolutely think we can go faster. I’m not going to say that’s as fast as we can go. We always strive to do better and I think at the moment, we’ve laid down a really solid time and so next time, we want to go even faster."

This is Evans' first Olympic build-up but she shows few signs of inexperience. And while the long-term goal is Tokyo, she admits that winning gold on her home track is a significant highlight of the season.

"The overall target might be Tokyo but there’s little targets along the way," she said.

"For me and Katie, this is a home crowd and we want to put on a good show. Ultimately, we love racing and we love winning, that’s why we do it."

Carlin and his teammates of Ryan Owens and Joe Trueman were pushed into second place in the team sprint but the 22-year-old declared himself happy with his day's work.

"As a whole, that was really positive," he said.

"We’ve been chipping away at the Dutch for the past three months so it’s good to see that we’re finally starting to compete with them. That’s the fastest they’ve gone since the Olympics I think so it’s been a really positive day all round.

"I’ve focused very hard on the team sprint, even over individual stuff, which has taken a hit, but from that, we can see that the team sprint is coming good. There’s Ryan and Joe, and then Jason (Kenny) and Phil (Hindes) at home training away. So we’ve got a squad of five and we’re in a really good position."