Isabelle Weidemann, Ivanie Blondin and Valerie Maltais began three days of competition at the Dutch venue with a flourish, posting a track record of 2min 54.640sec.

Silver went to the team from the Netherlands of Ireen Wüst, Irene Schouten and Antoinette De Jong in 2:55.585 with bronze going to Norway's team of Ida Njåtun, Marit Fjellanger Bohm and Ragne Wiklund in 2:58.229.

That triumph followed an upset in the formbook at the Thialf Arena as the home men’s team that won the team pursuit in Heerenveen last weekend could only finish fourth, 3.17sec adrift of the winners, Norway, whose team of Sverre Lunde Pedersen, Allan Dahl Johansson and Hallgeir Engebraten set a track record of 3:39.080.

The Canadian team of Ted-Jan Bloemen, Jordan Belchos and Connor Howe took silver in 3:39.943, with Russia's team of Danila Semerikov, Sergey Trofimov and Daniil Aldoshkin taking bronze in 3:41.400.

Canada’s women now lead the World Cup team pursuit standings with 240 points, ahead of The Netherlands on 216 and Norway on 192.

In the men’s standings, today’s win has taken Norway top with 228 points ahead of The Netherlands, who have 206, and Canada, who are on 204.

The first of the men’s mass start semi-finals was won by Andrea Giovannini of Italy in 7:43.480, with Russia’s Ruslan Zakharov a fraction behind him in 7:43.840.

Third place went to Haralds Silovs of Latvia, who clocked 7:46.300.

Belgium’s Bart Swings won the second semi-final, clocking 7:43.010 ahead of Victor Ramler of The Netherlands, timed at 7:43.040, and Danila Semerikov of Russia, who finished in 7:43.200.

The men’s mass start final will be the ninth and final race of tomorrow’s programme, with another day of racing scheduled for Sunday (January 31) in the Thialf Arena.