1 Combined prior exercise and fast-start 1 improves VO 2 kinetics and cycling performance 2 3 Original Investigation 4 5 Kirsty Brock 1* , Prokopios Antonellis 1* , Matthew I. Black 2 , 6 Fred J. DiMenna 3 , Anni Vanhatalo 1 , Andrew M. Jones 1 & 7 Stephen J. Bailey 2 8 9 1 Sport and Health Sciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, St. Luke’s 10 Campus, University of Exeter, Heavitree Road, Exeter, Devon, England, UK; 11 2 School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Ashby 12 Road, Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, UK; 3 Teachers College, Department 13 of Biobehavioral Sciences, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA. 14 *These authors contributed equally towards this work. 15 16 Correspondence: 17 Stephen J Bailey, Ph.D. 18 E-mail: S.Bailey2@lboro.ac.uk 19 School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences 20 Loughborough University 21 Ashby Road 22 Loughborough 23 Leicestershire LE11 3TU 24 Tel: +44 (0) 1509 226433 25 Fax: +44 (0) 1509 22630 26 27 Running Title: Pacing, priming, O2 kinetics, performance 28 Abstract word count: 243 words 29 Text-only word count: 3842 words 30 Number of Figures and Tables: 4 Figures and 2 Tables 31