Kristina Vogel and Miriam Welte give the German team an optimal start to the title fights in Cali. In the Velodromo Alcides Nieto Patino, the duo celebrated their third consecutive title in the women's team sprint. Already in qualifying both set the fastest time of 32,575 seconds. In the final they were able to improve this again and thus clearly relegated the Chinese team with Junhong Lin and Tianshi Zhong to second place. The British duo Jessica Varnish and Rebecca James took third place.
The men didn't fare so well. Among the defending champions, Robert Förstemann took the place of Stefan Bötticher, who had won the title in Minsk a year ago together with René Enders and Maximilian Levy. This time, too, the team had good prospects in the race. After all, the time of 42,885 seconds meant an increase on the previous year. However, this time the New Zealanders Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Edward Dawkins had the better end for themselves, albeit very narrowly. Their clock stopped after 42,840 seconds – a blink of an eye. Third place went to the trio from France, which started with Gregory Baugé, Kévin Sireau and Michael D'Almëida.
But not only the team sprinters held their competitions on the first day. The fans in Colombia were also able to enjoy the decisions in the women's scratch and the men's team pursuit.
In the men's team pursuit, the Australians have been a force for years. And the title fights in Cali also underlined this. Luke Davison, Glenn O'Shea, Alexander Edmondson and Mitchell Mulhern needed just 4000:3 minutes for the 57,907 meters and thus clearly prevailed against the second-placed competitors from Denmark, who were led by Omniums Olympic champion Lasse Norman Hansen. The New Zealand quartet took third place. The German team around Theo Reinhardt, Maximilian Beyer, Nils Schomber and Kersten Thiele came in seventh.
The women's scratch race was exciting. In the end the Belgian Kelly Druyts prevailed in front of the Pole Katarzyna Pawlowska and the Russian Evgenia Romanyuta. Stephanie Pohl was 15th.
