This opening session at the World Cup marked the start of the road to Rio, according to the senior rider in the Great Britain squad, the team pursuiter Ed Clancy, who said that the post-London hangover was long gone. If that is indeed the case, it is the endurance riders, male and female, who are leading the British, with the women's quartet bowling down the highway in pretty much the same shape – or arguably even better – as when they rolled off the boards at the Pringle in London 15 months ago.

It would be disrespectful to Laura Trott, Dani King, Joanna Rowsell and Elinor Barker to say that they make record breaking look routine but it is more than a habit, for the old hands Trott, King and Rowsell at least. The distance of the event has been increased by a kilometre from the start of this winter's track season and teams have had to add a fourth member, meaning that all the teams are on new ground, but it matters not a jot.

On Friday night the quartet broke their own world best time in qualifying; and in the final against Canada there was no question that they would win gold, given they had ridden over 4sec faster.

The big question was the time and the British quartet stepped up to the mark with 4min 19.604sec. They had their rivals in sight after half-distance, and came close to catching the Canadians in the end, helped by the disturbed air in their rivals' wake, meaning that in a single afternoon and evening, they had taken over 7sec off the record they had set two weeks earlier in winning the European championship in Apeldoorn. That is in addition to Trott's, Rowsell's and King's run of six world records in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics – before Barker joined the party at this year's world championships in Minsk – and through to last year's World Cup in Glasgow.

"Because it is a new event we are finding our own limits at the moment," said Rowsell. "In training [at] the first few sessions we plucked a number out of thin air. Over the last few competitions we have been pushing it that little bit further, that little bit harder. I think to go sub-20 is probably ahead of where we expected to be. We always said that we want to go through three kilometres quicker than we did in the Olympics. It's only going to get quicker."

The Glaswegian Katie Archibald has risen rapidly to become the fifth member of the squad; the 20-year-old was a team pursuit finalist in Apeldoorn and took the silver medal in the scratch race on Friday evening a few minutes after her team-mates had taken their pursuit gold medal.

There is also intense competition among the men's squad, for whom Clancy, Steven Burke, Andy Tennant and the Welsh 20-year-old Owain Doull took the gold medal here ahead of their perennial rivals Australia. "Six guys are going for four spots coming into the world championships and at the moment I couldn't say who will be in the team," is Burke's view.

Clancy said there is more to come, from what he terms "a development squad", after they gained inexorably on the Australians throughout the three kilometres, then hung on to win by just over half a second. "None of us really gave it everything in qualifying but as soon as we tried to step it up [in the final] we were on our limit apart from Burkie. A little bit more and we'll have a good go at the worlds."

Doull, currently, is the rider in pole position to step up alongside the more experienced trio but Jon Dibben and Sam Harrison are waiting in the wings.

"We tried Owain out in the final in Apeldoorn, didn't know what we were going to get, ever since then he's had his foot in the door and he's looking good at the moment," said Clancy. Doull, who will ride on the European professional circuit next season with Sean Kelly's development squad, is on a run of form that began in mid-September with the Tour of Britain, after which he has progressed through the world road championships and into the winter track season.

In time he will face the dilemma which besets all British men's team pursuiters, which is whether to specialise on the road or the track, but for Friday night he looked simply delighted.

Immediately after the men's pursuit Becky James and Victoria Williamson took to the track for the final of the women's team sprint, where they had qualified second – thanks to a storming second lap from James – to the German world champions Miriam Welte and Kristina Vogel.

The form book suggested that the Germans would take gold, and so it proved, but James was happy with her form and is optimistic ahead of Saturday's sprint tournament.