Cycling stars on brink of history

Whisper it, particularly as the world has yet to see what its Chinese hosts will have to offer once the action begins in the Laoshan Velodrome, but there is a possibility that the Team GB track cycling squad here could achieve the kind of domination in one of the Games' premier sports that Britain hasn't had the privilege of witnessing before.

There will be 10 finals staged over five days and in eight, Dave Brailsford's remarkable team has a serious chance of winning. Even accepting that such a prospect is unlikely, considering how just a moment of bad luck or unsuspected opposition brilliance can play, it is far from being totally outlandish.

Never mind all the cautious downplaying of their chances in public yesterday by cycling performance director Brailsford. Privately, if Chris Hoy, in the kierin, Rebecca Romero and Bradley Wiggins in the individual pursuits, Victoria Pendleton in the women's sprint and the men's pursuit team did not strike gold, team officials would perceive it as a grievous disappointment.

Add Shanaze Reade's banker win in the new BMX event and you're talking six golds, and you can search in vain to find the last time Britain mined such a rich seam in a single sport at any modern Games. No wonder athletics' meandering lack of direction in recent years, which has left the Beijing team hardly blessed with an abundance of golden opportunities, could see the track and field squad eclipsed by a team blessed with superb organisation, unrivalled technological back-up and supremely gifted athletes.

And if that changing of the guard occurs, cycling is ready to grasp its chance. "Look," said Shane Sutton, the team's wonderfully enthusiastic, straight-talking coach - Australian naturally. "I'm sure athletics' time will come, maybe going into 2012, and I reckon swimming's time will come too - but this is our time and we intend to make hay when the sun shines."

It is, Brailsford suggests, "as if all the planets are lining up in our favour" and he's not just referring to the unparalleled success in competitive cycling, which has stretched from the nine-gold success at a home world track championships in Manchester to Mark Cavendish's recent four stage triumphs in the Tour de France, a feat so staggering that he's become an instant superstar in Europe.

"It's more than that," said Brailsford.

"It's Sky TV coming in to back the sport; it's the 2012 Games coming up with cycling becoming more popular than ever; it's more bikes being sold than ever while fuel prices go through the roof; it's cycling as a way of life again."

Okay, so Brailsford's vision naturally fails to take in the widespread image of the peloton being some sort of pharmaceutical convention but it's time for both the dopers - and the scepticism - to be defeated, so why not buy into Brailsford's dream of seeing an all-British team in the Tour de France in 2010?

What an opportunity then for cycling's new flag-bearers. Every now and again, a Sir Steve Redgrave figure will stamp himself as an iconic Olympian to emerge from outside athletics but most in this exalted category, the latest being Dame Kelly Holmes, have tended to come from athletics.

Yet over this next fortnight, a quartet of these cyclists have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to join this most revered of clubs. First, there's Wiggins, the Londoner who could win the two pursuit golds, and another with Cavendish in the Madison, to take his total of Olympic medals to six, equalling Redgrave's all-time British record tally.

Then there's Hoy, the granite Scottish double world champ who has a shot, like Wiggins, at becoming the first Briton to win three golds in a single Games if he can win the kierin, individual sprint and team sprint. Having already won the kilometre event in Athens, it would also elevate him into that rare group who've struck gold at more than one Games.

In powerhouse pursuiter Romero and the slight sprinter Pendleton, two very different but equally driven characters - "Vicky the extrovert and Becks the introvert, I'd say," reckoned Sutton - how about iconic women Olympians too?

Romero's reinvention from Olympic silver medal-winning sculler to world champion cyclist in four years is breathtaking, and Pendleton's transformation from the mentally fragile figure of Athens to the charismatic fastest woman on two wheels persuades Sutton to suggest: "If she wins gold here, this girl will become the biggest female sports star of all-time in this country."

No pressure, then, ladies and gentlemen."We could be seeing the coronation of some of the greatest British Olympians of all-time, real heroes," said Brailsford.

"Olympic values are old-fashioned values about respect, integrity and doing it the right way with modesty and fair play. I think the likes of Chris, Brad, Vicky and Rebecca encompass that; they're really special."