Australia left the opening day of the track cycling world championships empty handed after two near-misses left them out of the medal rounds.
Daniel Ellis, Mark French and Ben Kersten finished one spot off the contest for the bronze medal in the team sprint when they were fifth in qualifying with a time of 44.615 seconds.
National track coach Martin Barras said he would have liked the chance to try another combination, had the team made the finals.
"The fifth place was obviously disappointing," Barras said.
"We were hoping to be able to get a second ride and the goal of that was not necessarily about the medals but what you want to do always with a world championships in an Olympic year is to go and assess your riding personnel."
The Australians were planning to test Olympic sprint and keirin champion Ryan Bayley at third wheel in place of Kersten if they had secured another ride.
France - with two of their three-man reigning world champion team, Gregory Bauge and Mickael Bourgain, plus Kevin Sireau - clocked a scorching 43.514 to set up a contest for gold and silver with Great Britain's Ross Edgar, Chris Hoy and Jamie Staff in the team sprint.
The French improved to defend their title in 43.271 ahead of Britain's 43.777. The Netherlands took bronze ahead of Germany.
Earlier, Australia's Brad McGee missed out on the opportunity to ride for a medal after finishing fifth in qualifying for the individual pursuit.
Compatriots Luke Roberts and Phillip Thuaux were seventh and 17th respectively.
Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins, whose estranged father, Gary, died in unexplained circumstances in NSW in January, claimed his third individual pursuit world title.
The individual pursuit field was due to include Great Britain's Rob Hayles, but he was withdrawn before the start of competition at Manchester's National Cycling Centre along with Dutch rider Pim Ligthart after anomalies were found in samples taken from blood doping checks.
Hayles' volume of red blood cells in his blood (haematocrit) was found to be 0.3 per cent over the permitted threshold of 50 per cent set by cycling's governing body, the UCI.
Levels above 50 per cent are seen as an indication, though not proof, of possible blood boosting.
In other race results, Kaarle McCulloch, Australia's only women's sprint cyclist at the meet following world record holder Anna Meares' omission from the team to continue her rehabilitation from a nasty crash in January, finished 12th in a field of 16 in the 500m time trial.
Leigh Howard carried Australia's last remaining medal hope of the day in the men's scratch race, but he was last among those who completed the race in 20th place.
"You're talking about young kids with their first experience who are just being a little bit overwhelmed," Barras said of McCulloch and Howard.
Both of them are great talents that we believe firmly in and they will be in the picture for us in 2012. You need to get started and that's what we're doing."
