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Laura Trott and Jason Kenny seal 'golden couple' status at Rio

Silver for Becky James and bronze for Katy Marchant in sprint

Laura Trott and Jason Kenny, who are getting married next month, have taken their household Olympic gold medal total to 10 this evening as the track cycling programme finished in Rio, Trott winning the omnum and Kenny the keirin.

It’s the fourth career Olympic gold medal for Trott, moving her back ahead of equestrian Charlotte Dujardin, winner of her third dressage gold yesterday, as Britain’s most successful ever female Olympian.

The final event of the omium, where Trott was defending the title she won at London 2012, was the points race, covering 25km and 100 laps of the velodrome.

Picking up points in sprints throughout as well as an extra lap – in which she was joined by second-placed JolienD’Hoore of Belgium and third placed Sarah Hammer of the USA– Trott had extended her lead to 29 points entering the final 40 laps, with four sprints remaining.

With the Briton riding strongly and the American and Belgian still level on points behind her, it seemed that the latter pair were by now engaged in a battle for silver with any thoughts of catching Trott effectively over.

Ahead of the penultimate sprint with 10 laps remaining, Hammer and D’Hoore attacked but Trott immediately set off in pursuit of them to end any thoughts they might pick up another lap.

Hammer took the final sprint to finish in the silver medal position ahead of D’Hoore, but the night – and the past two days – belonged to Trott, as she took her second gold medal in Rio.

Trott, with three wins and two second places in the preceding five rounds, had gone into the points race, with a commanding lead of 24 points over D’Hoore, who was on the same number of points as Hammer but ahead on countback.

Kenny joins Hoy on six golds after dramatic keirin

Trott watched on as her fiancé Kenny sought a record equalling sixth Olympic gold medal for a Briton, looking to emulate Sir Chris Hoy, winner of that event in London four years ago - and her nerves must have been shredded as the final needed to be re-run three times.

Riders are not allowed to overtake the derny that brings them up to pace until it peels off with five and a half laps to go, but on the first running of the final, Kenny and Malaysia’s Azizulhasni Awang were given the benefit of the doubt, the crowd applauding as it was announced that both would take to the start again.

The second time around, it was Germany’s Joachim Eilers – the reigning world champion – who seemed to overtake the derny first.

He, too, avoided disqualification, with the issues perhaps caused by positioning of cameras, or the point at which the derny rider peeled off.

At the third time of asking, Kenny delivered with a storming final lap that saw him come round the back straight and storm to the line ahead of Matthijs Buchli of the Netherlands and Awang , who had only reached the semi-final via the repechage.

Kenny joins Hoy – his former team sprint partner – as the only Britons to have won six Olympic gold medals.

Britain’s Callum Skinner, whom Kenny beat in the individual sprint final after the pair took gold together in the team event, finished first in his repechage heat against tough opposition including London 2012 silver medallist, Germany’s Maximillian Levy.

However, the Scot was relegated after it was ruled that he had deviated off his line on the back straight.

Silver and bronze in women's sprint

In the women’s sprint, Becky James beat keirin gold medallist Elis Ligtlee 2-0 to reach the final, but was beaten by Kristina Vogel 2-0 - in the second race with an effort so hard that the German's saddle broke. It's the second silver medal at Rio for James, who since becoming a double world champion in 2013 has battled injury and cervical cancer.

Vogel had beaten Britain's Katy Marchant to reach the final, the British rider - who started her sporting career in heptathlon and trained beside Jessica Ennis-Hill before their coach, Tony Minichello, recommended her to British Cycling after seeing her perfomance figures on a static bike - going on to take bronze 2-0 from Ligtlee.

With six gold medals, Team GB's track cyclists have dominated proceedings in Rio, and while they have not matched the seven golds of Beijing and London - but in terms of total medals won, the country has exceeded its target, set by UK Sport which provides funding, of 8-11 medals in cycling once Chris Froome's time trial bronze is added.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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4 comments

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tritecommentbot | 8 years ago
2 likes

Seen the Secret Pro do that on cyclingtips too, call out other pros in the peloton when they go from riding averagely early in the season, to breakaway monsters with an extra 40+ watts, at the Giro.

 

From their perspective it can look dodgy. To the viewer it just looks like someone's riding well.

 

That said, I'm surprised to hear this sort of thing aired in public.

Wouldn't be surprised at all if some riders turn out to be dodgy, but really we invested big monies into track racing this Olympics. Over 30million, at least. Money gets results in sport. 

 

Australia for example had only around half that. No point whining at us because you're country doesn't invest enough in you.

Avatar
brooksby | 8 years ago
2 likes

I see that the naysayers have already started making their voices heard, about how well the British cycling team have done at these olympics. Vogel in particular gave an interview saying, "I'm not saying it's suspicious, but...".

 

Avatar
bikebot replied to brooksby | 8 years ago
3 likes

brooksby wrote:

I see that the naysayers have already started making their voices heard, about how well the British cycling team have done at these olympics. Vogel in particular gave an interview saying, "I'm not saying it's suspicious, but...".

The evidence does indeed appear to be stacking up. Sooner or later some journalist is going to do a bit of digging and find out that British Cycling has been using large quantities of money on the team.

Avatar
brooksby replied to bikebot | 8 years ago
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bikebot wrote:

brooksby wrote:

I see that the naysayers have already started making their voices heard, about how well the British cycling team have done at these olympics. Vogel in particular gave an interview saying, "I'm not saying it's suspicious, but...".

The evidence does indeed appear to be stacking up. Sooner or later some journalist is going to do a bit of digging and find out that British Cycling has been using large quantities of money on the team.

I agree. I understand that we spent £32m compared to, say, the Australians spending c.£11m. I don't know about other teams but there does seem to be an element of simple jealousy that the UK spent so much more than anyone else and then - er - did well.

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