Britain’s Jess Varnish and Becky James won bronze as the men’s sprint and pursuit teams endured a tough first day at the Track Cycling World Championships in Cali, Colombia.
Varnish and James were third in the women’s team sprint but the two men’s squads failed to reach their respective medal ride-offs.
The sprint team were fifth, while the pursuit quartet finished eighth.
Britain won the four-man pursuit event in 2012 and took silver in 2013. They also won gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
But two-time Olympic gold medallist Clancy, Sam Harrison, Owain Doull and Jon Dibben finished eighth this time in four minutes 4.419 seconds as Australia won the 4km event ahead of Denmark.
It was Britain’s worst performance for 15 years, although London 2012 gold medallist Steven Burke was missing from the line-up after failing to recover from illness.
London 2012 champions Phil Hindes and Jason Kenny combined with Kian Emadi to come fifth in the sprint event over three laps.
Britain have not won the world title since 2005 – when Sir Chris Hoy, in Cali for this event as a team mentor, was part of the squad – and have now missed out on a medal for a third successive year.
Kenny has never worn the world champion’s rainbow jersey in the team sprint and Britain’s wait for a world title will extend to 10 years.
The World Championships are taking place at a track exposed to the elements, with a roof but without walls, but the forecast rain did not arrive and so proceedings were not disrupted.
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