Gray and Thompson set up gold-medal ride-off with Ireland's Meehan and Walsh

New Zealand’s Phillipa Gray and Laura Thompson set a stunning world record at the Paralympic Games to advance to the women’s blind and visually impaired tandem pursuit final at the London 2012 velodrome.

Gray and her pilot Thompson clocked three minutes 31.530 seconds, beating the previous best mark by almost five seconds, to set up a gold medal ride-off with world champions Catherine Walsh and Francine Meehan of Ireland, who qualified in 3mins 36.453secs.

Great Britain’s Aileen McGlynn and Helen Scott (3:36.930) reached the bronze medal ride-off alongside compatriots Lora Turnham and Fiona Duncan (3:37.085).

An all-British final in the men’s blind and visually impaired tandem sprint was possible after Anthony Kappes and Craig MacLean qualified in a world record of 10.050 to be granted a bye directly to the semi-finals.

There the pair were set to meet Tatsuyuki Oshiro and Yasufumi Ito after the Japan duo overcame Holland’s Rinne Oost and Patrick Bos 2-1 in a titanic quarter-final tussle.

One-kilometre time-trial champions Neil Fachie and Barney Storey qualified in second and beat Argentina’s Alberto Nattkemper and Jonatan Ithurrart 2-0 in the quarter-finals to set up a last-four clash with Jose Enrique Porto and Jose Antonio Villanueva.

The Spanish duo were 2-0 victors over Greece’s Christos Stefanakis and Konstantinos Troulinos.

Darren Kenny, Rik Waddon and Jon-Allan Butterworth advanced to the final of the mixed C1-5 team sprint.

The British trio clocked a world record of 49.808 in qualifying, but in the next heat China beat the mark. Ji Xiaofei, Liu Xinyang and Xie Hao lowered the world record by 0.004secs to 49.804 to set up a final meeting with the hosts.

The United States and the Czech Republic advanced to the bronze medal ride-off.