SIR Chris Hoy and Geraint Thomas showed Great Britain remain the world's leading nation at Manchester's Velodrome with stunning victories at the Track World Cup.
One thousand days before the London Games open, Hoy, who was knighted after winning three gold medals as the British team dominated in Beijing last year, marked his return to international competition following injury with a supreme display in winnin
g the keirin. And his performance was followed up by Thomas, who clocked four minutes 15.015 seconds in individual pursuit qualification – a time only bettered by world record holder Chris Boardman – before winning the final with ease.
Four-time Olympic champion Hoy missed March's World Championships in Pruszkow, Poland with a hip injury sustained in a crash in Copenhagen in the final Track World Cup event of last season. The injury kept the 33-year-old from Edinburgh off the bike for ten weeks – his longest period out of the saddle since he began riding a BMX – but he announced his international return in emphatic style.
Hoy deployed his tried and trusted method of going from the front as the derny motorbike left the track with two and a half laps remaining and held off the challenge of the remainder of the field – including world champion Maximilian Levy of Germany – to triumph.
Earlier, Hoy had to fight through the bunch to win his semi-final and was relieved the final went according to plan. "It was a bit more predictable and a bit more controlled than the semi-final," he said. "The semi-final was a bit of a hairy one – I had to come from the outside and that's quite a hard way to do it – but that gave me the confidence that I had the gas in the tank. In the final I didn't want to be in that position so I took it from the front as I like to do and hit it pretty hard, tried to string them out. It was quite a measured performance. It was only half a bike on the line, but it was enough to win."
Britain can now lay claim to having the three fastest four-kilometre pursuit riders in history in Boardman – world record holder after setting 4mins 11.114secs against the clock in Manchester in August 1996 – Thomas and Bradley Wiggins.
Three-time world and double Olympic champion Wiggins watched on as Thomas beat his personal best of 4:15.031, set as he won gold in Beijing.
Unfortunately for the 23-year-old from Cardiff, the pursuit is set to be dropped from the Olympic programme for London in changes proposed by the international cycling union (the UCI] to gain gender parity.
"It's disappointing, because obviously I'm not bad at it – I would've definitely been going for that," said Thomas.
Britain added two more golds on the opening day. Chris Newton won the men's points race. The Olympic and world bronze medallist dominated the event, which is another set to be axed in the revised Games programme.
Victoria Pendleton then clinched Britain's fourth gold of the first World Cup event of the season with victory in the women's sprint.
Pendleton was tested to the full in the final with Guo Shuang of China, but prevailed 2-1.
Pendleton has a rest day today, but Hoy is in action in the men's sprint.
