VICTORIA Pendleton claimed Olympic gold four years after her Athens heartbreak.
The 27-year-old from Hitchin beat Anna Meares of Australia in the final of the sprint in a display which was a long way from the moment when she froze on the Olympic stage.
Pendleton did not lose a single race at the Laoshan Velodrome, and she swe
pt through a semi-final against Holland's Willy Kanis and then her encounter with Meares.
With the help of sports psychologist Steve Peters, she has developed strategies to cope with the pressure she feels when she takes to the track.
As the highest profile member of the squad behind Bradley Wiggins and Chris Hoy, she was expected to win gold in the only event available to her here. And she had to wait to the last day of competition at the track for her medal shot.
Pendleton said: "I honestly don't think I'd be here if it wasn't for Steve Peters.
"I've wanted this so badly. I'd beaten everyone in the field so there was a lot pressure on me to win a medal – I'm 'the golden girl of the track'. But I didn't think about the outcome, I just tried to focus on the process. I didn't even allow myself to think about winning or failing, I just focused on the training I'd done."
Tipped as a medal contender in 2004, she finished sixth in the now absent time-trial and was knocked out in the first round of the sprint.
Wiggins, chasing a third gold himself, failed to win a medal in partnership with Mark Cavendish in what was a reminder the British cyclists are not invincible.
Wiggins, 28, who had won golds in the individual and team pursuits, looked short of his best in the Madison, in which teams of two riders tag each other into the race.
Cavendish, who won four stages on the Tour de France earlier this summer, was the only member of the track squad not to win a medal with seven of 10 titles going to British riders.
The full article contains 350 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
