The promise of the greatest domination of any major sport at a single Olympic Games by a British team was raised gloriously today as Chris Hoy, Jamie Staff and Jason Kenny launched the cycling track programme here in Beijing with a world record-breaking golden performance.

The trio - two experienced stars in Staff and Hoy and a thrilling young newcomer Kenny - did not just obliterate the opposition, including their former French masters, in the team sprint at the Laoshan Velodrome here.

They also signalled that this entire British track cycling team, now richly funded, brilliantly prepared and crammed full of rare talent, is ready to transport their sport into a new era.

The team's bosses had been coy when it was suggested that their cyclists could pick up eight golds in the next week but today their secret could be concealed no longer.

Wearing specially designed new rubber skinsuits - one of the technological breakthroughs they had been keeping from their rivals - they annexed the one title here which no-one thought they would win.

Not just a win but an annihilation. The team - enhanced by the introduction of 20-year-old Lancastrian rider Kenny - were a completely different proposition to the one which couldn't get near the French at their home world championships earlier in the year in Manchester.

"It's unbelievable, the pinnacle for every athlete," said Hoy, who can now be considered one of the all-time great British Olympians while celebrating his second gold following his victory in the one kilometre event in the Athens Games.

"It means everything. It's particularly satisfying because the French have been so strong for so long."

He himself looks in the sort of form to pick up another gold medal in the Keirin event tomorrow, thus joining that elite band of Britons who have won three golds.

Staff, though, will settle for just the one, fearing that at 35 he would be destined to miss out as the young guns of British cycling have come through to threaten his place.

The prospect of something extraordinary happening had reared its head within seconds of the trio pushing off in their first qualifying race as Staff, the former BMX rider, recorded the world's fastest-ever lead off lap in just 17.198sec seconds.

Kenny, who was chosen to replace world championship silver medallist Ross Edgar in the team, proved the wisdom of this ruthless decision from team bosses, covering his second 250m lap in the fastest time seen all day, 12.555sec, before Edinburgh's seen-it-all Hoy blasted through to the finish in 13.197sec.

Their combined time of 42.950sec - the first-ever sub-43sec time over 750 metres - beat the record which the French had set when defeating the Brits in the Manchester world championships.

Psychologically, the French favourites must have felt crushed when they tried to match it in their qualifying race and finished over half a second slower.

Their reaction smacked of panic; for the rest of the competition, they decided to drop one of the sport's all-time great sprinters, Arnaud Tournant.

For their decisive first round race against the USA, though, Britain stuck with their same three and, this time, they ended fractionally outside their new record but, having set the fastest time of the four finallists, were guaranteed a race for gold against their old cross-Channel foes.

The final could not have been more one-sided. Staff went inside his new world mark, clocking 17.136sec and Kenny again followed up with a scintillating lap before Hoy reeled off a 13.391sec final lap to seal the gold in 43.128sec, again more than half a second ahead of the French, who clocked 43.651.

If this wasn't enough of a shock to the rest of the cycling world's system, the sight of Bradley Wiggins and Rebecca Romero also both signalling their intentions to come away with pursuit gold this weekend after excellent rides in qualifying only exacerbated the feeling.

Most strikingly, the strength in depth - and the exceptional promise - of the team was also signalled by the fact that, after Wiggins had set off on his quest to become the first Briton to win three golds at a single Games by qualifying fastest for tomorrow's first round of the pursuit, Steven Burke, a 20-year-old from Colne, also qualified fifth, breaking his own lifetime best by nine seconds.

As for Wiggins, he looked quite imperiously smooth as he broke his own Olympic record in qualifying and Shane Sutton, the team coach, believes he is now capable of breaking the world record in Sunday's final.

Wendy Houvenhagel and Romero were the two fastest qualifiers for the first round of the individual pursuit tomorrow, thus raising another historic possibility of two British cycling women sharing a podium for the first time following the remarkable road race successes of Nicole Cooke and Emma Pooley.

Houvenhagel even had the temerity to break Romero's UK record but Romero, the former rower from Twickenham, looked to have plenty in reserve as she seeks to become the first British woman ever to win Olympic medals in two separate summer sports.

Just across the road from the venue here is one of Beijing's biggest Disney-style amusement parks at Shijingshan but this British cycling team won't be heading there. They'll settle instead to turn Laoshan into their own fun palace.