BEIJING: Britain lived up to their billing as the dominant force on the boards of the Laoshan velodrome here yesterday with a show of sprint power that has left their gold medal rivals shaking.
Scotland’s Chris Hoy anchored Britain to an historic victory in the coveted Olympic team sprint in an exciting finale which left world champions France with the silver and defending champions Germany with the bronze.
Today Britain are hoping to claim a further two gold medals from the men’s pursuit and the keirin, where Hoy’s world title will face the Olympic test from the likes of Dutchman Theo Bos.
The other event today is the men’s hard-to-predict Points race, but all eyes will be on Hoy and Wiggins.
Already Britain’s most decorated Olympic cyclist with four medals, Wiggins prepared for defending his Olympic crown by setting a new Olympic record of 4:15.031 in qualifying.
It pipped his old mark of 4:15.165, and was still a few seconds shy of compatriot Chris Boardman’s world record of 4:11.114. But British track chief Dave Brailsford said the 27-year-old Londoner can go a lot faster in either the first round, or the final - both of which are raced today. “To come out and ride a personal best is what the Olympics are all about. The (world) record is on the cards,” said Brailsford.
Wiggins will also compete in the men’s team pursuit, in which Britain are world champions and world record holders, and in the Madison in which he is world champion with Mark Cavendish.
Britain also saw Wendy Houvenaghel clock the fastest time in qualifying for the women’s individual pursuit, which is held over the shorter distance of 3km. The northern-Irishwoman, a bronze medal winner at world level, clocked 3min 28.4sec to claim her place in the first round alongside reigning world champion and teammate Rebecca Romero.
Romero, a medalist from Athens where she won silver in rowing’s quadruple sculls, finished second in qualifying in 3:28.641 and is a huge favorite for tomorrow’s final. Feeding off the success of the British sprint team is likely to be on the menu for the rest of the British camp as they aim for silverware in eight of the 10 finals. Hoy’s bid in the keirin and next Tuesday’s sprint final is much less certain, although the Scot goes into those unpredictable events on the form of his life.
