FORMER rowing world champion Rebecca Romero looked ahead to the Beijing Olympics after completing her transformation to the cycling equivalent as she claimed the individual pursuit title at the track cycling World Championships in Manchester.
British riders clinched three golds in the national velodrome, with Romero triumphing just two years after she abandoned rowing for cycling.
Bradley Wiggins earned his second title in as many days as he drove home the British quartet in world-reco
rd time to win the team pursuit.
And Victoria Pendleton and Shanaze Reade ensured God Save the Queen was played for a third occasion, and a fourth of the week so far, when they defended their title in the women's team sprint.
Having been a world champion and an Olympic silver medallist in one sport, Romero had taken a risk in switching to cycling.
But her win over defending champion Sarah Hammer of the United States was as comfortable as it was impressive for someone who had never been on a track bike until after she turned 26.
Having become the first British woman to complete the 3000-metre event in under three minutes 30 seconds in qualifying, she was not as fast in the final but still quick enough to beat the American by over six seconds.
And she is already looking ahead to the Olympics.
"That's the tough part following on from that, but it's only upwards now," she said.
"I was against Sarah Hammer who is a class act. I believed that I could do it but I knew the main problem would be if she pulled out a massive ride and I didn't. But if you ride with a passion, if you start with that, it feeds you."
The British team are on target to match the seven golds they won at last year's worlds.
Wiggins was punching the air with half a lap left to go of the team pursuit final as a greatly-improved Danish team were seen off.
The time of 3mins 56.322secs was almost a third of a second quicker than the previous record set by Australia in beating Great Britain in the Olympic final four years ago.
"It's been quite emotional, the last couple of days," said the Londoner, who insisted the quartet of Wiggins, Geraint Thomas, Ed Clancy and Paul Manning could go even quicker in Beijing this August.
"The big aim is always the Olympics but we've prepared well for this.
"Then we had a couple of illnesses over the last six weeks which put to bed the thought of doing a world record so, yes, I do believe we can go faster. A couple of the lads had colds and I was on my death bed about five weeks ago."
Pendleton and Reade survived a technical fault at the start of their final to beat China's Jinjie Gong and Lulu Zheng.
The British pair broke the world record in qualifying and were confident of doing so again but were put off by a malfunctioning starting machine.
Pendleton said: "It's been a fantastic couple of days. We couldn't have asked for more world records. Everything's going our way."
The full article contains 533 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
