[1][2] Robert Heffernan and Grzegorz Sudol took the early lead, soon joined by Yusuke Suzuki.

After gaining as much as a seven-second lead, the chasers caught back up to Moulinet and left him to fall off the pace, while Chen took his turn to break off the front as the pack started to string out in chase.

A few minutes later Vladimir Kanaykin, then Luis Fernando López managed to bridge back to the leaders.

The third Chinese Zelin Cai hovered off the back of the pack and steadily picked off all the stragglers to eventually finish fourth for a remarkable 1-3-4 team performance.

Erick Barrondo from Guatemala won silver and Wang Zhen, also of China, took bronze.