There was no gold for Australia on night two of action at the Vélodrome National.

But not all that glitters is gold. Sometimes it doesn't need to be.

The bronze medal won by the team sprint squad of Leigh Hoffman, Matthew Richardson and Matthew Glaetzer carries just as much weight as a medal of any other colour.

Coming hot on the heels of a remarkable world record performance in the team pursuit to put Australia into a mouth-watering clash with Great Britain on Thursday morning (AEST) for gold, it was a bronze medal that meant so much.

For all three, world champions in this discipline in 2022, it was a first Olympic medal of any colour.

Richardson and Glaetzer had both been in this same final at the Olympics three years ago and finished fourth.

Glaetzer had the same thing happen to him in Rio, too. Twice. And London, 12 long years ago.

It would be enough to make some people believe that it was destiny working against them.

Not just destiny, some sort of curse, a relic from walking under a ladder during his brief junior pole vault career. 

"I've had so much heartbreak in Olympic finals," Glaetzer said.

"Every Olympic final I've been in, it's been been gut wrenching.

"The last Olympics caused me to question whether I wanted to keep riding and, geez, I'm glad I stuck it out and finally got the monkey off my back.

"I've been working my whole elite career to try and do this."

It's a career that will already go down as one of Australia's best on the pine — three-time world champion, a five-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist.

But by this, his fourth Olympic Games, he had already finished fourth in four Olympic finals.

Four times watching the medal ceremony from afar.

No wonder he felt like quitting was the best option.

A 32-year-old who has already fought and beaten thyroid cancer in 2019, returning to reach the pinnacle of his sport. 

What else, aside from an Olympic medal did he have to prove?

"We've kind of done it for the the Aussie teams before us," Glaetzer said. 

"I've been a part of a lot of them and we just know how hard it is and the history behind it and us getting pipped at the line, every single time. 

"We just didn't want to live that again. I did not want to live that again."

Such force of will to manifest the bronze medal against a French team with the backing of the entire 3,200-strong Vélodrome National crowd, silenced by the brilliance of a bold Australian gamble.

Because they did gamble. Things had not been going well for Australia.

Hoffman and Richardson, both "beasts" according to Glaetzer, were leaving him for dead off the start.

Hoffman is known as one of the great starters in the world — it's what makes Glaetzer so excited about seeing him in the individual sprint later in the week.

But his powerful start was simply not conducive to riding well as a team.

So Glaetzer stepped up and made a huge change, volunteering to lead the team off to ensure that the real horsepower was best used at the end of the three-lap burst.

None of the riders had trained in these positions during the entire Olympic cycle.

"I told the coach that. If we try that again, I don't think it was gonna be the result that we wanted," Glaetzer said.

"We've done it in the past at World Championships when I busted my calf and couldn't go and knew that was the play for the quickest time.

"I was willing to change it up for chance of the bronze. We did not want to let it slip through our fingers again."

Glaetzer admitted that he felt the pressure. That it was a risk. That after it paid off his first emotion was relief.

Because boy did it pay off.

"I've experienced everything that you can experience throughout my career so far," Glaetzer said.

"I know the boys wanted wanted more. We we all did. 

"But through all the challenges that I've had, through getting through cancer, through messing up my calf just before the Olympics to wanting to almost give away the sport, and to now to bring home a medal for Australia. 

"I'm just so proud of of the team that I'm a part of.

"I couldn't have done it without them, we we stuck together and to get a medal is is amazing."

It wasn't the only amazing achievement at the track by an Australian team on Tuesday.

Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O'Brien laid down a marker by absolutely obliterating the world record in the 4,000m team pursuit.

It was a tremendous omen for what was to come for Australia.

The time, 3:40.730, was a full 1.302 seconds faster than the world record set by Italy at the Tokyo Games.

It puts Australia into the gold medal final on Thursday morning, where they will face Team GB, who were only a tenth of a second outside the original world record themselves.

"It's a classic Aussie-British final," Team GB sprint coach Jason Kenney said.

"We were surprised with what [Australia] have bought, they're in great shape."

They are in great shape, and so too is the velodrome itself, a wonderful facility at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to the west of Paris.

The Australian team pursuit world record was one of just three to fall on the night.

The Dutch team sprinters broke their own world record twice, once to qualify for the gold medal race and then again in it.

New Zealand's women came within a whisker of beating the women's team pursuit record during the qualification rounds too.

That follows the women's team sprint world record being broken no fewer than five times in a single day on Monday, three of those by Great Britain.

That's because it is uncomfortably hot and humid inside the facility.

Supporters fan themselves with whatever they can find and the ice-cream stand was doing a roaring trade.