On Top of the World

 

 

British Fans cheer their Riders on

Sixteen medals in Three days means the Great British track squad are well on target to dominating the World Championships in Majorca at the end of March

Friday saw Victoria Pendleton dominate the Women's Sprint to easily take Gold from Shuang Guo of China, and Austraila's Anna Meares

Pendleton, who was riding in SiS colours, set a blistering time of 11.068s to qualify fastest ahead of Meares, who still set an impressive time of 11.161s

The 27-year-old Pendleton came through a semi-final against 18-year-old Briton Anna Blyth, who narrowly lost the bronze-medal race to Australia's Anna Meares.

The victory was well deserved as Pendleton was clearly the most dominate rider, however Blyth's performance deserves a mention as she wasn't phased by the event or the riders she was facing and produced some fantastic sprinting

 

Chris Hoy, getting Ready for his Kilo Victory

Friday also saw World, Olympic and Commonwealth Champion Chris Hoy take a narrow victory in the Kilometre TT

Standards had already been set high wby Tim Veldt when the Dutch man set a time of 1m 02.617s and the Hoy v Pervis showdown was delayed whilst Poland's Tomasz Schmidt was allowed to re-run his effort after pulling his foot out in his start

This only went to improve the atmosphere in an already buzzing Manchester Velodrome, which enjoyed a healthy attendance

Hoy shot out of the gate and was leading Pervis after the first two laps, however by lap three Pervis was on top and it took an almighty effort from the Scot to get back in front and win in a time of 1m 01.500s to Pervis' 1m 01.535s, so as you can see it was extremely close!

 

Sprint Silver medallist Shuang Guo (Left), Gold went to Victoria Pendleton (Centre), Bronze medallist Anna Meares (Right)

The Men's Individual Pursuit saw Britain's Bradley Wiggins return to the track in dominant style

Wiggins was on form in the Individual Pursuit qualification to record a fantastic time of 4m 18.276s to top the leader board from Russia's Alexander Serov, who recorded a time three seconds slower with 4m 21.081s

 

Wiggins dominated the Individual Pursuit in emphatic style

This meant Wiggins faced Serov in the final whereas arch rival Bradley McGee would have to ride for Bronze against the Netherland's Jen Mourris, due to him only recording a time of 4m 24.238s

McGee easily beat Mouris by six seconds to claim the Bronze medal, and Wiggins produced a similar dominate performance in the final to take gold easily from Serov in a stunning time of 4m 17.864s

Britain also won three more Gold's on Saturday, with the same names grabbing the headlines once again

Victoria Pendleton smashed her own British Record in the 500m TT to win Gold from Yvonne Hijgenaar in a time of 34.070s, which in comparison to her previous PB of 34.614s is an outstanding result

Britain's Anna Blyth also picked up a medal with a strong ride giving her a time of 34.866s and this was enough to give her Bronze

It wasn't long before Blyth added another medal to her palmares when she teamed up with the Junior BMX World Champion Shanaze Reade to ride the Women's Team Sprint and record a fantastic time of 33.802s to reach the final against Dutch pair Willy Kanis and Yvonne Hijgenaar

In the Men's Team Pursuit the British quartet of Ed Clancy, Paul Manning, Bradley Wiggins and Rob Hayles set a blistering time of 3m 59.876s in qualifiying eclipsing the rest of the field

Consequently they went into the final against Russia as overwhelming favourites, and again where on form catching the Russian team who had crumbled under the pressure and were reduced to two riders

All goes to show that the new Endurance team setup of Shane Sutton and Matt Parker as coaches is paying dividends and the team look on course for a World Championship title in Majorca next month, as well as a possible World Record in the process

Finishing in the Bronze medal position were the British B Team, 100% Me which consisted of promising Junior riders Ben Swift, Jonny Bellis, Steve Burke and Andy Tennant. The quartet produced two riders that showed experience beyond their years and took a well deserved Bronze medal.

Chris Hoy was again on form when he easily reached the final of the Men's Sprint, however the experience of Frenchman Arnaud Tournant proved too much for Hoy and he had to settle for the Silver medal

It was left to the Women's Pursuit riders to conclude the night, with an much anticipated final between Britain's Wendy Houvenaghel and Rebecca Romero

World Cup winner for the past two seasons, Houvenaghel yet again proved too strong for Romero, and clinched the Gold medal in a time of 3m 35.294s in comparison to Romero's 3m 39.143s

Sunday saw the climax of the World Cup, but it didn't see an end to the British dominance, with five more medals coming the way of the home nation

The World Cup winning trio of Craig Maclean, Ross Edgar and Chris Hoy stormed to victory in the Team Sprint beating their closest rivals Germany by just under a second

Victoria Pendleton was again on form as she dominated the Women's Keirin to claim her third Gold medal of weekend

Vicki easily beat Russia's Oksana Grishina and Shuang Guo to take the title, which meant that she was unbeaten in the entire three days of competition

In the Madison both the British squad of Rob Hayles and Thomas, and the 100%ME team of Ben Swift and Jonny Bellis rode extremely well to finish in second and fourth places respectively.

Unfortunately despite plenty of attempts, neither of the British teams could gain a lap on the field, however the Netherlands duo of Jens Mourris and Peter Schep did so and comfortably took the victory

Russia's Nikolai Trussov and Serguei Klimov took the Bronze medal, by one point from 100%ME

In the highlight of the final day's competition Britain's Chris Hoy and Ross Edgar dominated the JKA International Keirin to finish first and third respectively, with Teun Mulder finishing in second

The British duo controlled the race from the front with Edgar holding off the field whilst Hoy attacked and easily claimed the victory by a couple of bike lengths, from Teun Mulder who just managed to beat Edgar to the Silver

The victory meant Hoy walked away £10,000 richer, and the rest of the field shared remaining £35,000 of the prize fund