Canada's women's pursuit team posted a Canadian-record time and was the fastest in qualifying at a track cycling World Cup on Thursday.

Three-time world champion Tara Whitten of Edmonton, Jasmine Glaesser of Coquitlam, B.C., and Gillian Carleton of Victoria topped the 15-country field with a time of three minutes 20.785 seconds at the velodrome built for the 2012 London Olympics.

The Canadians took nearly a second off the previous national record, which was set at the Pan American Games in Mexico last October. The time was just short of the world record of 3:19.569, which will be threatened again Friday in the final rounds.

"You can never be disappointed when you set a new Canadian record," Whitten said. "The feeling wasn't quite as smooth as when we trained a couple of days ago, at the training camp in Wales. We worked hard for every tenth of second we got, and so I am very happy."

Great Britain took the second spot with a time 3:21.370, and will battle Canada for the gold medal Friday. Australia was third and will face the fourth-place Netherlands for bronze.

"It's a really exciting time for our team right now," Whitten said. "When we had our trials in (Los Angeles), we saw that all five of us produced fast times. It makes the decision really hard for the coaches, and pushes us to be at our best every day, which in turn makes the team a lot faster."