Olympic champions Great Britain missed out on a medal ride in the men's team pursuit on day one of the Track Cycling World Championships after a woeful performance.

Ed Clancy, twice an Olympic champion in the four-man, four-kilometre event, combined with Sam Harrison, Owain Doull and Southampton’s Jon Dibben to place eighth in the event, clocking four minutes 04.419 seconds.

Britain, silver medallists in 2013, were the 12th of 13 teams to start and were expected to advance comfortably to the medal rides, yet failed dismally to do so.

Defending champions Australia were second fastest in 4mins 01.516secs and will meet fastest qualifiers Denmark (4:00.176) in the final on Wednesday evening.

The bronze medal will be contested by Russia (4:01.615) and New Zealand (4:02.056).

The World Championships are taking place in Colombia at a track exposed to the elements, with a roof but without walls.

Britain's preparations were disrupted by wind blowing in rain on Monday, but conditions were dry for the opening event of the competition.

London 2012 gold medallist Steven Burke was not selected for the qualifying ride and the British quartet, chasing a second world title since 2008, failed to fire, consistently lapping slower than the opposition.

Denmark had set a track record in the previous heat and Britain were a lowly sixth through the halfway mark, with plenty of work to do.

However, the British squad's travails continued and Harrison dropped out with 1km to go, leaving his trio of teammates to forge on alone without reward.

Britain will hope for a more fruitful evening session on the opening day.

The session features Phil Hindes, Jason Kenny and Kian Emadi in the men's team sprint, Jess Varnish and Becky James in the corresponding women's event and Hamble’s Dani King in the women's 10km scratch race.