• Katie Archibald: ‘You don’t come for bronze; you come to win’ • Hannah Miley takes bronze in 400m individual medley

Wholly expected but impressive nevertheless, Great Britain’s women sped to team pursuit gold at cycling’s European Championships in Glasgow last night, circling the track at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome at a relentless 56kph to vanquish Italy in a time of 4min 16.896sec.

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Moments after their male counterparts had earned bronze, it was a show of strength from the quartet of Laura Kenny, Katie Archibald, Neah Evans and Elinor Barker. Olympic champions in Rio, they succumbed to the United States at this year’s world championships in Apeldoorn but this felt better in so many ways.

It bodes well for the coming days, according to Archibald, who will defend her individual pursuit title on Saturday “Like anything in sport, you don’t come for the bronze, you come back to win,” she said.

“I think certainly the Europeans has been a strong opener for us. Quite a lot of nations do a bigger road season and then build their way through the track season, whereas in Team GB we do a lot of prep around our team pursuit and the best way to do that.”

The victory alleviated a little of the gloom in the Kenny household with Laura’s husband, Jason, part of the British squad who were surprisingly eliminated in the first round of the team sprint, leaving the way clear for the Netherlands to be crowned champions. “We got it wrong a little bit,” the six-times Olympic champion said.

Italy out-paced Switzerland to win the men’s team pursuit in 3min 55.401sec but the GB group of Ethan Hayter, Steven Burke, Kian Emadi and Charlie Tanfield narrowly overcame Germany to land third place. “The squad is a mixture of youth and experience,” Burke said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jason Kenny could not prevent Great Britain from a surprise first-round exit in the men’s team sprint. Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images

“Ethan’s just come up from the academy but we’ve still got a lot of stuff to improve on technically. We’ve definitely got the characteristics to go and do some big things, it’s looking promising.”

Russia won the women’s team sprint with Ukraine’s Roman Gladysh taking the 15km men’s scratch race.

Hannah Miley collected the first British medal of swimming’s European Championships, landing bronze in the 400m individual medley. Now 28, the all-rounder from rural Aberdeenshire saw what has been an elusive Olympic souvenir drift cruelly away when she was squeezed into fourth place in Rio by Spain’s Mireia Belmonte.

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Yet still she fights on, and having snared a Commonwealth Games silver in April, she surged from seventh on the backstroke leg and then repelled a late charge from GB team-mate Aimee Willmott as the new French record holder Francine Lesaffre held off Italy’s Ilaria Custinato for gold.

The Scot’s medals now span a decade but she is not done yet. “I’m happy,” said Miley, whose time of 4min 35.34 was 1.17 secs adrift of Lesaffre.

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“It was just down to the race. It was so nice just to come away with a medal, especially when it came down to the last couple of metres. I’ve been touched out so many times and it was nice to finally just be amongst the medals with that touch. My first European champs was 2006 so to still be medalling in 2018 at the age of 28, soon to be 29, is pretty good for someone my size.”

Adam Peaty lowered his own championship record to 57.89sec in the 100m breaststroke heats and although his semi-final victory was a mere 58.04, the Olympic champion will be heavily favoured for yet another gold in Saturday’s final, perhaps even a crack at his world record.

“There was no emotion, I wasn’t using the crowd,” said Peaty, who will be joined by James Wilby, the second-quickest qualifier for the final. “None of the supplements that I usually use like caffeine. It was probably a seven out of ten engagement.” GB’s women came fourth in the 4x100 freestyle relay final, won by France.

GB’s synchronised swimmers secured a finals berth on the opening day of competition in the Team Free event. Their score at the end of the prelims session was 78.3667, which ranked them ninth.