So what comes after a knighthood? Great Britain’s perfect start to the Olympic track cycling continued as Sir Bradley Wiggins and his team-mates Ed Clancy, Owain Doull and Steven Burke won the men’s team pursuit in thrilling style and world record time. They beat Australia in the showdown, reversing the outcome of the corresponding final at the world championships in March. After that reverse, Wiggins advised anyone who’d listen to “put your house” on a British win here.

They were as good as his word, posting a time of 3min 50.265sec as they came from behind after 3,500 metres of the 4,000m trip. Even in defeat Wiggins would have become the most decorated Olympian in British history, assured as he was of a medal whatever the outcome. But having stated he had no interest in winning silver or bronze it would have been decidedly anti-climactic if he’d ascended to his new exalted status from anything other than the podium’s top step. In a career incorporating five different Olympic Games not to mention assorted outdoor distractions, this was his fifth gold and takes his overall medal tally to eight. “I knew it would be close, so when we crossed the line it was more relief than anything,” he said. “I’m just happy to be able to wake up on Monday and not have this. It is a burden. I wanted to go out like this, I wanted it to end like this and not with some crappy little race in the north of France, climbing off at the feed.”

How Britain won gold and set a new world record in Olympics team pursuit Read more

Great Britain did it the hard way. Australia led from the gun, with Alexander Edmondson, Jack Bobridge, Michael Hepburn and Sam Wellsford opening a gap of over half a second by halfway, but with eight laps of Siberian pine to negotiate, the eventual winners began to reel them in. Bobridge took a “death pull” for Australia and expended such effort he left his team with just the three men required to post a time. It was a tactic that did not pay off, as the British closed the gap to less than one-hundredth of a second at the 3000m mark and from then the outcome was never in doubt. “It was just about keeping your bottle, it wasn’t easy,” said Clancy. “We could sense by the crowd we weren’t ahead. When we crossed that line a second ahead, I think it was the happiest moment in my life.”



Asked about his short and long term plans, Wiggins was in typically forthright mood. “It’s over in a flash and we’ll all be hungover tomorrow,” he said. “That wasn’t my last race, but it was my last Olympic Games. My kids have never known anything other than me being an Olympic athlete and they need me now.”

Unused in qualifying on Thursday, Mark Cavendish was once again fifth man but did not turn up at the velodrome to warm up before the day’s racing. The Guardian was told he had fallen out with British team pursuit coach Heiko Salzwedel, whoCavendish described as “very stubborn” during the team’s training camp in Newport two weeks ago. British Cycling’s head coach Iain Dyer described claims Cavendish had refused to attend the velodrome as “bollocks”, while Wiggins said his teammate, who will contest the omnium “was hugging me yesterday and telling me he loved me”.

On Cavendish’s omission from the team, Wiggins said “we gave Mark the opportunity in Newport to come into the squad and he didn’t deliver. We saw how close it was and we couldn’t afford, having been together for 18 months and it wasn’t just me ... I didn’t freeze him out or anything like that and he knows that. Ask him about it after the omnium and he’ll tell you a totally different story to the one he told Orla [Chennai, from Sky].”

Sir Bradley Wiggins pulls clear from roll call of British Olympic greats Read more

Fresh from winning gold in the men’s team sprint the previous day, both Jason Kenny and Callum Skinner followed up with fine performances in qualifying for the individual event. Skinner scorched up the track to set a new Olympic record of 9.703sec in his flying 200m time trial, beaten by Kenny’s 9.551 soon after. Kenny went on to ease past Germany’s Maximilian Levy in the last 16. Skinner subsequently led from the front to advance to quarter-finals, shutting the door on Australia’s Patrick Constable after a two-lap game of cat and mouse. Both men will resume their respective assaults on the competition today [saturday].



In the day’s other final, China won the women’s team sprint, beating Russia in the final while Germany bagged bronze in a contest where Great Britain were notable absentees. It was the failure of Jess Varnish and Katy Marchant to qualify that led to the former being dropped from the Team GB “podium programme” and the subsequent row that resulted in the resignation of the team Technical Director Shane Sutton amid allegations of discrimination and bullying, which he strenuously denies.

Two-times Olympic gold medallist Victoria Pendleton said it was “ridiculous” Great Britain were not in the event, stating there is “no way” they are not among the five fastest teams in the world. It seemed something of a rum do that while two of Team GB’s fastest women, Marchant and Becky James, were relaxing ahead of the individual competition on Sunday, the lady whose speed either has yet to match was actually in the velodrome providing informative if slightly wistful co-commentary for the BBC.