Thursday 2 August 2012

Five gHOYlden rings! #London2010 #TeamGB

Victory salute
Today the cycling has moved from the road into the velodrome and what a day it was. World records fell in the Team Sprints to both the men and women's GB teams, though the later lost theirs minutes later to China, and to the men's 4000m team pursuit.

But there was drama in the first round of the women's sprint. Victoria Pendleton was deemed to have overtaken Jessica Varnish too early and this resulted in them being relegated to last in the round rather than progressing to the gold medal match.

The GB team of Geraint Thomas, Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Peter Kennaugh (the other Manx man) then did what Mark Cavendish in the GB box said they would do and not only won but smashed the World Record for the 4000m team pursuit, they went long stints on the front and kept all four of them together until the bell lap.

Next up were the medal rounds of the sprints.

In the women's the Chinese took the line first...

...but...

...after the commissaires reviewed the footage they too were relegated to last in their round to only take the silver. Meaning that the German's took Olympic gold despite two other pairs actually breaking the world record on the day.

For the men it was GB v France and Philip Hindes was up against Gregory Baugé but completed the first lap just ahead, handing on to Jason Kenny and then Sir Chris Hoy who crossed the line in 42.600secs for a new World Record but for Hoy it was his fifth gold to go with 1km time trial in 2004, sprint, team sprint and Keirin in 2008, plus the silver in team sprint in 2000. He has now equalled the number of gold and total medals of Sir Steve Redgrave, one more medal this week and he will go ahead of Sir Bradley Wiggins Wiggo with most medals.

But not only was it the fifth gold for Sir Chris it was the fifth for Team GB in these Games.

Team GB tally for today 3 gold and 3 silver. Over to the pool to see if Rebecca Adlington can add to the haul tomorrow having qualified for the 800m Freestyle this morning.

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