The German team sprinters missed out on a medal at the World Track Cycling Championships in Santiago de Chile.
The trio of Lea Sophie Friedrich, Pauline Grabosch and Alessa Pröpster were eliminated in the second round against Australia and finished fifth. The German men also remained without a medal in the team sprint on the first day of competition in Chile. Nik Schröter, Luca Spiegel and Maximilian Dornbach came in eighth.
At the World Cup, the German team sprinters, who were otherwise so used to success, competed in a new line-up. Pröpster replaced the pregnant Emma Hinze.
The 28-year-old, together with Friedrich and Grabosch, had dominated the discipline for years as the “Brandenburg Express”, winning four world championship titles in a row and improving the world record several times.
Grabosch, Friedrich and Hinze won bronze at the Olympics in Paris and silver three years earlier in Tokyo. They skipped the 2024 World Cup together a few months after the Summer Games.
The Association of German Cyclists also came away empty-handed in the men’s team pursuit. Moritz Binder, Benjamin Boos, Felix Groß and Ben Felix Jochum narrowly missed the small final and took fifth place. Lena Charlotte Reißner came tenth in the scratch with the victory of the Dutch Lorena Wiebes.