Real McHoy sprints to his golden grand slam

The 2004 Olympic kilometre time trial champion won kilo and keirin last year in Majorca and the team sprint in 2005, and last night he finally surpassed Dutchman Theo Bos's triple crown to complete the sprinter's set in an event in which he is a novice.

He is 'The Real McHoy', as his parents' banner proclaimed. He took up the event only a year ago when UCI, the world governing body, dumped the kilo, his speciality, from the Olympic programme.

Despite the sprint not being regarded as an event for beginners, Hoy possesses enormous sprint power in his tree-trunk thighs.

But that is just one part of the sprinter's armoury — the cunning of a confidence trickster in the initial game of cat-and-mouse is also needed but comes usually only with long experience.

Hoy, 32 last Monday, overcame the problem in the semi-finals by blasting from start to finish to earn the right to race France's World Cup winner Kevin Sireau in the final but, using clever tactics, he beat him by a wheel rim's width in the first race, and then more easily second time, making a best-of-three unnecessary.

Britain could now surpass last year's unprecedented seven world golds but anything the British men do the women are matching.

Rebecca Romero, individual pursuit winner like Bradley Wiggins, led the women last night to the team pursuit crown in a world record time, as Wiggins had 24 hours earlier.

Romero, a world champion rower who switched sports two years ago when she became bored with being a 'robot on water', won her second gold in company with Wendy Houvenaghel, fourth in the individual, and teenager Joanna Rowsell. And she gave all the credit to the youngster.

'Would anyone have known from that ride she is 19 years old? She definitely made it for our team. You can't hide in team pursuit and she didn't. She rose to the occasion,' said Romero.

Romero admitted she had slept with her gold medal. 'Very childlike, I know, but it was right there with me.

'You've gone through every scenario in your head what can happen and only one of those is winning and you think: "That sort of thing doesn't happen to me". And yet it did. Fantastic. I didn't sleep much.

'It was so hectic last night, friends and family, autograph hunters, interviews, eat, shower and wash out my racing kit for today.

'When I went to bed I was knocked out but then you hit the pillow with this massive grin on your face and start to think about what happened and, of course, you can't sleep a wink. I've been running today on the energy of winning yesterday.'

The trio set an inaugural world record for the new event in their heat then smashed that in the final against Ukraine by three seconds.

Ukraine had a half-second edge after one kilometre but the British had turned that round to their advantage by two and, as the Ukrainians came apart, opened it to a full seven seconds at the final 3,000metres mark.

Now she can celebrate, but not for long. The individual pursuit in Beijing is on the horizon and the possibility that she will become the first British woman to win medals in two different summer Olympic sports.

'When you are racing two events, you can't stop and celebrate, you just have to think "job done, move on".

'Now I can take it all but what's happened here doesn't guarantee anything in Beijing. Monday this whole team draw a line and starts again,' said the Londoner.

Victoria Pendleton, winner already of the team sprint with Shanaze Reade, won her way to today's semi-finals of the individual sprint.

The most serious threats, Cuban world champion Lisandra Guerra Rodriguez and World Cup winner Willy Kanis were defeated. Pendleton has a third medal chance in the keirin tomorrow.