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Cycle team-mates sprint to glory as Britain gears up for more golds
Kiran Randhawa and Shekhar Bhatia in Beijing15 Aug 2008
Britain's cyclists won Olympic gold today - raising hopes of a medals rush this weekend.
Men's sprint team Chris Hoy, Jamie Staff and Jason Kenny claimed the first gold awarded at Beijing's Laoshan Velodrome. It boded well for "Super Saturday" when Team GB are on the verge of clinching at least six gold medals in a day.
Two more medals are guaranteed in sailing with Ben Ainslie in the Finn class and "three blondes in a boat", Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson in the Yngling competition, guaranteed at least silver.
The cycling sprint trio finished the race in 43.128 seconds, half a second ahead of the French team who took silver. Even before the sprint final, the three broke the record for the fastest time during the qualifying round.
In finishing in 42.950 seconds around the 750-metre track, they beat France's record set when they beat Britain in the World Championships this year.
Hoy, 32, of Edinburgh, fought back tears as the team received their medals.
They join fellow cyclists Nicole Cooke, who won gold in the road race on Sunday, Emma Pooley, who won silver at the women's time trial on Wednesday and Joanne Jackson who won bronze in the road race.
Britain's cycling team is predicted to claim more medals on the cycling track over the next five days.
At Athens four years ago, the two golds, a silver and a bronze - won exclusively on the track - represented the best British cycling haul of the modern era.
Now, having picked up a gold and a silver from the road, and with the likes of Bradley Wiggins still to take to the velodrome, expectations are even higher. Wiggins is odds-on for a medal in the individual pursuit after beating his own Olympic record in the qualifying round. He completed the 4,000 metres in four minutes, 15.031 seconds. Hoy, who won silver in the team sprint in Sydney 2000, is in the men's keirin tomorrow. He won gold in this event at the World Championships last year and this. He is also in the men's sprint on Tuesday.
Staff said he wanted to win again in
2012. "I would like to go to the London Olympics. I know what to do now, I know how it works, I know how to get that medal. It was unbelievable," he said. Hoy added: "The big thing for me was to do my job. You are part of the team and you don't want to let these guys down." Staff, 35, from Ashford, Kent, who also won silver in Sydney, abandoned a lucrative career in BMX racing in the US six years ago to pursue his dream of winning an Olympic medal.
Kenny, 20, from Bolton, is the newcomer to the team.
Hoy said: "It's unbelievable. It's the pinnacle for every athlete, it means everything. It's particularly satisfying given the French have been strong so long."
The women's individual pursuit cycling event also looks a good prospect for medals after Britons Wendy Houvenaghel and Rebecca Romero recorded the two fastest times in qualifying today.
